Newberry's Baur, Tusculum's Shepard Earn SAC Baseball Weekly Awards
As the SAC baseball regular season reaches its final week, Newberry infielder Albert Baur and Tusculum relief pitcher John-Austin Shepard have been named the conference's Players of the Week, it was announced on Tuesday.
ROCK HILL, S.C. – As the SAC baseball regular season reaches its final week, Newberry infielder Albert Baur and Tusculum relief pitcher John-Austin Shepard have been named the conference's Players of the Week, it was announced on Tuesday.
Baur hit an even .500 for Newberry last week as the Wolves went 3-3. The sophomore had 10 hits in 20 at-bats, paced by three hits on Tuesday at Pfeiffer and a four-hit performance on Wednesday against Benedict that included two home runs and seven RBI.
Baur also homered on Saturday in a conference win over Carson-Newman, finishing the game with four RBI. He concluded the week with a slugging percentage of 1.050 and scored four runs.
He currently leads the SAC with 48 RBI and ranks third in the league with a .374 batting average.
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Shepard became the first reliever to earn SAC Pitcher of the Week accolades this season after recording two wins and a save for Tusculum. His first appearance of the week came Wednesday against Young Harris, where he closed out a 6-3 Pioneer win by throwing 1.2 perfect innings.
Shepard then made relief appearances and earned victories in two of TC's weekend games at Lenoir-Rhyne. He allowed no runs and only one hit in 2.2 innings on Friday, then again surrendered no runs and just a single hit to the Bears in three innings on Saturday.
In a total of 7.1 innings pitched on the week, Shepard struck out 12 batters while walking only one. He leads the SAC in saves with eight and ranks second in ERA at 1.83.