Hatters Collect ASUN Hardware

The four players stand together as Brooks hands Austin the trophy.
The 2018 Team Captains accept the ASUN trophy. They are, left to right, L-R: Jack Perkins, Jorge Arenas, Austin Hale and Brooks Wilson. Wilson also was named ASUN Player of the Year.

Jacksonville, Fla. – The Stetson Hatters took home a pile of hardware on Tuesday night, May 22, at the ASUN Championship Tournament banquet on the campus of the University of North Florida.

In addition to the trophy for winning the 2018 ASUN regular season title, the Hatters also picked up awards for Player of the Year, Pitcher of the Year and Coach of the Year.

Junior right-hander Logan Gilbert earned Pitcher of the Year honors for a second consecutive season, marking the first time in league history a hurler has won the award in back-to-back seasons. In fact, the only other two-time Player of the Year winners in league history are Stetson’s Chris Westervelt (2002 and 2004) and the Hatters’ Wes Weger (1991-92).

Logan Gilbert roars his arm back to pitch a fast one.
Junior Logan Gilbert was named ASUN Pitcher of the Year for a second consecutive season.

Gilbert’s selection for a second straight year gives Stetson four Pitcher of the Year winners, tying the Hatters with FGCU for the most in league history. The award was first presented in 2004 and the other two Hatters to have collected the hardware were Corey Kluber (2007) and Kurt Schluter (2011).

In addition to the league hardware, Gilbert was also named on Monday as one of the semifinalists for the 2018 Golden Spikes award for the college player of the year.

Gilbert enters the ASUN Tournament with a 9-1 record on the season with a 2.61 ERA. He has already broken the Stetson season record for strikeouts, and currently ranks second in the nation, with 134 strikeouts. He has held opposing batters to a .166 batting average this year.

Senior Brooks Wilson was named ASUN Player of the Year, breaking a nine-year drought for Stetson since Jeremy Cruz last won the award in 2009. Wilson is the 12th player in Stetson history to earn Player of the Year honors from the ASUN, by far the most for any school in the history of the league. Georgia Southern stands second in total number of Player of the Year awards from the ASUN with five.

Wilson, who is a finalist for the Senior CLASS Award and is also on the watch lists for the Stopper of the Year and the John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year, was twice named ASUN Player of the Week this year and enters the tournament with a .281 average for the season, leading the team with 14 doubles and 29 walks. On the mound, the Hatters’ closer has a 5-0 record with a 1.76 ERA to go with his NCAA best 19 saves.

Both Gilbert and Wilson were unanimous selections to the All-Conference team, which is voted on by the league’s coaches. They were joined on the first team by junior right-hander Jack Perkins, who goes into the tournament with a 10-2 record and a 2.62 ERA. He is just 14 strikeouts shy of joining teammates Logan Gilbert and Mitchell Senger (101) in the 100-strikeout club.

portrait of Trimper in Hatter baseball jersey.
Hatters coach Steve Trimper was named the 2018 ASUN Coach of the Year.

In addition to the two player awards from the ASUN, Hatters coach Steve Trimper was named the ASUN Coach of the Year. In just his second season, Trimper has overseen an improvement of 14 victories from his first season to this year. It is the third time for Trimper to earn a Coach of the Year award, joining with the MAAC Coach of the Year he won in 2002 at Manhattan and the American East Conference Coach of the Year he won at Maine in 2013.

The Hatters also placed three players on the ASUN second team All-Conference, as well as one on the All-Freshman squad and three on the Academic All-Conference team.

Junior pitcher Joey Gonzalez (7-3, 1.79) will be on the mound for Stetson on Wednesday when the Hatters open ASUN Tournament play against NJIT. He was joined on the second team by junior outfielders Jacob Koos and Mike Spooner.

Infielder Eric Foggo, who has become a fixture in the Stetson lineup over the last six weeks of the season, was named to the All-Freshman squad. Foggo leads Stetson with five home runs in just 87 at bats this season and has twice come within one hit of the cycle while splitting time between first base and third base.

The trio of Academic All-Conference selections included Gilbert and Senger along with outfielder Andrew MacNeil. Overall the Hatters have an unweighted cumulative GPA of 3.293 and a weighted GPA of 3.263. This spring, 24 of the 33 players on the team (73 percent) had a GPA of 3.0 or higher with 14 players (43 percent) named to the Dean’s List and nine (27 percent) named to the Honor Roll.

Stetson, the No. 1 seed, will open play in the 2018 ASUN Tournament on Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. at Harmon Stadium against sixth seeded NJIT. All of the games during the tournament will be broadcast on ESPN+.