
Seven Pride baseball players selected to All-Heart teams, Hinton earns Gold Glove
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - With their first game of the Heart of America Athletic Conference Tournament set to start up at 8:30 p.m. CT tonight, the Clarke University baseball team found out that seven members of their team earned All-Conference honors, Heart officials announced.
Of those seven total selections, four came from the stingy pitching staff for the Pride with starters Tyson Tucker (First Team), Devan Quesada (Second Team), and Jake Fiorito (Honorable Mention) along with reliever Isaac Rohde (Second Team) getting spots for their performance on the mound throughout the season.
The three hitters that received spots were second baseman Victor Lara, outfielder/DH Taiga Sato, and catcher Bryce Hinton as Lara received the first team spot at second base with Sato and Hinton nabbing honorable mention spots.
Tucker, a junior from Delhi, Iowa, worked as the Pride's number one starter for the entire season as he finished the regular season with an even 100 strikeouts over his 64 innings pitched and also finished with the third-best starter's ERA for CU.
Lara, a junior from Littleton, Colo., started all 49 games for Clarke at second base as he led the team with a .367 batting average and 58 hits while producing 10 doubles, one triple, and three homers on the year. He was also a solid run producer with the team's second-highest RBI total to end the regular season at 34 for the season even with a good amount of at bats coming from the leadoff position in the lineup.
Quesada, a junior from Rodeo, Calif., was the team's leader in innings pitched (68.2), wins (8), and complete games (4) as he finished with a 2.75 ERA and a 9.44 K/9 ratio. Quesada was one of four pitchers to earn a Heart Pitcher of the Week honor for his back-to-back wins performance against Arizona Christan and Baker that included six no-hit innings against ACU.
Rohde, a junior Rice Lake, Wis., was the go-to lefty out of the bullpen for the Pride as he finished with 37.1 innings pitched to a team-low 1.21 ERA and closed out six saves, the most for any member of the Clarke pitching staff. Rohde was another weekly pick for the Heart Pitcher of the Week for a week that included two saves and a win in three appearances over a two-day stretch combining 6.2 innings pitched.
Hinton, a senior from Peoria, Ill., played in 47 of the 49 games either at catcher, first base, or desgnated hitter to finish with a slash line of .287/.337/.406 with 46 hits, 10 doubles, three home runs and 22 RBIs. Hinton also earned the Gold Glove for the catcher position as he only made one error all season for a .997, only seven past balls throughout the year and he caught 15 runners attempting to steal in 65 chances.
Fiorito, a senior from Woodstock, Ill., returned from an elbow injury this season to have the lowest starter's ERA on the Pride at 2.27 over 10 starts and 43.2 innings pitched while striking out 7.42 batters per nine innings. Fiorito was another CU pitcher to earn Heart Pitcher of the Week where he started a pair of games in a week where Clarke won both games and he combined for 10.2 innings and only two earned runs allowed in those starts.
Sato, a senior from Santa Clara, Calif., played outfield or was the DH for the Pride in 45 of the 49 games as he finished the regular season slashing .295/.394/.446 as he totaled 33 hits, 25 runs scored, nine doubles, a triple, two home runs and 18 RBIs on the year.
Clarke will get their postseason started later tonight when they face Park University in their first matchup of the Heart Tournament in Ozark, Mo. for a scheduled 8:30 p.m. CT first pitch.