Julian Sanders Captures Third-Team All-America Honors from D3baseball

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Junior first baseman Julian Sanders of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps baseball team earned third-team All-America honors from D3baseball.com, the website announced this week.

Sanders becomes the first Stag to be honored on the D3baseball.com All-America teams since Alex Weber-Shapiro was a second-team selection in 2008, one year after Morgan Cummins earned first-team All-America honors in 2007, the inaugural year for the website. 

Sanders was a first-team all-region selection by both D3baseball.com and the American Baseball Coaches Association earlier this week. He claimed the SCIAC Athlete of the Year after a record-breaking season for the Stags, hitting 14 home runs on the year, breaking the previous CMS mark of 13, which had held for 26 years since Tyler Laughery set it in 1997. Sanders also finished the season with a .398 batting average, 18 doubles, 59 RBI, a .795 slugging percentage, and a .452 on-base percentage. 

Over the course of the regular season, Sanders was named the SCIAC Hitter of the Week three times. He captured the honor after compiling hits in eight straight at-bats over the course of a Texas trip, including a 5-for-5 effort against Texas Lutheran. He also earned it after hitting 8-for-12 in a three-game series sweep of Pomona-Pitzer, and after a big three-run double with two outs in the ninth inning and CMS down by a run in a comeback win over Whittier. 

Following his performance in the Pomona-Pitzer series, Sanders was also the runner-up for the National Player of the Week Award from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. 

Sanders' efforts in the 2023 season helped CMS to a 28-11 record, matching its highest win total since 1988, and the program's first-ever SCIAC Postseason Tournament bid, when he hit his record-breaking 14th homer against top-seeded La Verne.