Five Stags Earn All-Region Honors from D3baseball, ABCA

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Five members of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps baseball team earned All-Region honors from both D3baseball.com and the American Baseball Coaches Association, with Dillon Martin adding Region X Rookie of the Year honors from D3baseball.com.

Andrew Mazzone earned first-team all-region honors from both organizations at designated hitter, while Adam Dapkewicz and Julian Sanders joined him on the ABCA first team. Hamilton Finefrock was second-team all-region from both as a relief pitcher, while Martin was second team from D3baseball.com and third team from the ABCA. Meanwhile, Dapkewicz was second-team all-region from D3baseball.com, while Sanders was on the third team.  

Martin earned Rookie of the Year honors after stepping in as the starting second baseman for the Stags and finishing with a .307 batting average, 46 runs batted in, and a .952 fielding percentage. He was 2-for-2 in the SCIAC Championship game with three runs scored, and homered in the regional finals against No. 3 East Texas Baptist. 

Mazzone set the CMS program record with 20 home runs, to go along with a .404 batting average and 55 runs batted in, while drawing 33 walks for an on-base percentage of .509. He homered twice in a key 7-6 late-season win over La Verne to keep the Stags' regular season title hopes alive, and had a three-homer game in a 9-6 win over Redlands, while adding four homers in a four-game series sweep of Southwestern. 

Sanders held the old CMS record for homers, set last year with 14, and had another strong season for the Stags, finishing the year with a program-record 78 hits, breaking the old mark by five. He batted .386 with nine homers and 52 RBI, finishing his three-year career with 154 RBI, just 18 shy of the program record (set in four seasons). He had hits in all four games of the NCAA Regionals, including a 2-for-4 effort in the regional finals against East Texas Baptist, and homered in a 10-9 win over Cal Lutheran in a SCIAC elimination game. 

Dapkewicz played his graduate season for CMS after previously playing at Division I Georgetown, stepping in at catcher and batting .358 with eight homers and 43 RBI. He had half of his homers in the postseason, hitting round-trippers in three straight games in the SCIAC Tournament, a three-run blast in a 10-9 win over Cal Lutheran, a two-run shot in a 4-1 win over La Verne, and a three-run shot that put CMS ahead in the championship round against Pomona-Pitzer. He added five hits in the NCAA Regionals, including another homer in a win over Centenary. 

Finefrock had a dominant season as a reliever for the Stags, tallying an 0.64 ERA during the regular season in 16 appearances. He was used as a starter in elimination games twice in the postseason, finishing with a win against Cal Lutheran and a no-decision against Centenary after throwing four shutout innings. He came back later that day to throw 2.1 more shutout innings in relief in a win over Concordia, lowering his ERA to 0.60 as a reliever (and 1.33 including his two starts). 

CMS set a program record with 32 wins, finishing the year 32-15, while earning its first NCAA bid since 1996, reaching the regional finals.