Baseball Southern Conference

Moritz, Broom named to Baseball America Third Team

DURHAM, N.C. – Mercer relief pitcher Robert Broom and UNCG’s Andrew Moritz, the 2018 SoCon Player of the Year, were named third-team All-Americans by Baseball America as the publication announced its national postseason honors Thursday afternoon.

A junior from Rising Fawn, Georgia, Broom was a force on the mound in 2018. The right-handed sidewinder went 10-4 with a 1.70 earned run average over 74 innings and 31 appearances. He became just the 10th player in program history to record 100 or more strikeouts in a single season (111) and finished his junior season ranked third nationally in strikeouts per nine innings (13.5).

Broom repeated as the Southern Conference’s top relief pitcher, earning first-team all-conference honors for the second straight year. Of his 31 appearances, 13 were three innings or more, including a standout performance at No. 1 Florida when Broom tossed 12 strikeouts over a career-long six innings to lead Mercer to a 6-4 win in Gainesville, Fla.

Broom becomes the first Bear to earn All-America honors from Baseball America since Kyle Lewis did so in 2016 in addition to being named the publication’s Collegiate Player of the Year. Broom was one of three players from the state of Georgia – Joey Bart (Georgia Tech) and Keegan McGovern (Georgia) – to earn spots on the publication’s three All-America teams.

Moritz becomes the first Spartan to earn All-America honors from Baseball America and is the 16th Spartan to earn All-America honors in UNCG’s 28-year history.

This is Moritz’s third All-American honor. He was named a Freshman All-American by Collegiate Baseball and was a first-team CoSIDA Academic All-American in 2017.

Moritz hit for a .428 average in all 54 games this season. He led the team in triples, RBIs, slugging percentage and on-base percentage this year. His 10 triples set a new school record for triples in a season, while his 23 career triples are a new UNCG and SoCon record for triples in a career. He currently holds UNCG’s record for career batting average, hitting .406 during his three-year career, besting the old mark by 25 points.

The junior center fielder led the Southern Conference in batting average, hits, RBIs and triples in 2018. He finished second in the NCAA in batting average, 39th in runs scored, seventh in hits, second in triples and triples per game, 28th in RBIs per game, 33rd in total RBIs, 14th in on-base percentage and 46th in slugging percentage.