David Pierce announces 2019 UT baseball season awards

By Steve Lansdale

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas baseball head coach David Pierce and his staff have announced the winners of the third annual postseason team awards.

Each of the six awards is named after a former Texas player: the Brooks Kieschnick Team Most Valuable Player, the James and Huston Street Longhorn Award, the Keith Moreland Offensive Player of the Year, the Greg Swindell Pitcher of the Year, the Spike Owen Defensive Player of the Year and the Sean Braswell Academic MVP.

Right-handed pitcher Bryce Elder won the[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] Street Longhorn Award, the Kieschnick Team MVP Award and the Swindell Pitcher of the Year Award after a sophomore season in which he earned second-team All-Big 12 honors despite a record of just 2-4. The first-team Academic All-Big 12 honoree started 13 games, finished the season with a 2.93 ERA over 83 innings pitched and compiled a brilliant strikeouts-to-walks ration of 86-33. Of the 70 hits he allowed in 2019, just 15 went for extra bases.

“Bryce did a great job of giving the team a chance to win on a weekly basis,” Pierce said. “He was our most consistent arm, our most consistent leader and the player that exemplified true grit and determination to make teammates better and be a great representative of Texas baseball.”

The Moreland Offensive Player o the Year Award went to freshman outfielder Eric Kennedy, whose .310 batting average led the UT offense. His 57 hits, three triples and 77 total bases also were team highs, and his 41 runs scored were second only to the 42 times across the plate for teammate Duke Ellis.

“Eric was our most consistent hitter all year,” Pierce said. “He has the ability to attack opposing teams in multiple ways. We look forward to having him as part of our offense for the years to come.”

Ellis won the Owen Defensive Player of the Year Award thanks to an array of highlight-reel catches in center field.

“Duke made all of the routine plays and made some difficult plays look easy,” Pierce said. “He made some great plays, too, that made him become the defensive player of the year for the Longhorns,” Pierce said.

Sophomore infielder Sam Bertleson was named the team’s Braswell Academic MVP, thanks to a 3.95 GPA in mechanical engineering, and earned a spot on the Google Cloud Academic All-District team, as well as first-team Academic All-Big 12 honors.
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