LUBBOCK, Texas – No. 15 NC State baseball’s Will Wilson has been tabbed one of five finalists for the 2019 Brooks Wallace Award, which honors the nation’s top shortstop, announced by the College Baseball Foundation on Thursday.
Wilson is the first Wolfpack baseball player since Trea Turner in 2014 to be named a finalist for the prestigious honor.
The Kings Mountain, N.C., native recently garnered ACC Defensive Player of the Year and First Team All-ACC honors, as he has committed just six errors in 53 starts at shortstop. Additionally, he has tallied 56 putouts, including a team-leading 121 assists, in 183 chances.
At the plate, Wilson leads the team with a .346 batting average, 20 doubles, 16 home runs and a .682 slugging percentage, and those numbers rank top seven in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Brooks Wallace Award will be presented this summer by the College Baseball Foundation. It is named for former Texas Tech shortstop Brooks Wallace, who played for the Red Raiders from 1977 to 1980. Wallace died of leukemia at the age of 27.
NC State begins NCAA Regional play Friday versus Campbell at 12 p.m. in Greenville, N.C., as it makes its 31st postseason appearance and ninth in the last 10 seasons. The Pack was selected to the NCAA Greenville Regional as the No. 2 seed.
The NC State Baseball team is now 7-0 through two weeks of play, going 4-0 last week, defeating Coastal Carolina 16-4 on the road in a midweek game, and sweeping Belmont at home this past weekend (11-4, 7-0, 7-1).
The Wolfpack remain ranked 21st in the D1Baseball Top-25.
The Wolfpack moved up 11 spots to #19 in the Collegiate Baseball Poll, up 2 spots to #20 in the Coaches Poll, and up 1 spot to #24 in the Baseball America poll.
NC State will host Longwood today at 3pm in their next matchup.
But while I was over on Twitter, I saw a ton of comments on it, all of them NC State fans, and almost all of them critical of the new look.
Look, I don’t know what’s going on here. Maybe it’ll look a lot better once it’s done, or maybe the grass will match up a lot better when it greens up. But right now, it’s a little jarring. Here is how it used to look…
Again, I’m going to wait until it’s really done before I cast judgement, but I think the official tweet from the school marketing it and drawing attention to it, has people thinking it’s in it’s final form. And maybe it is. But I hope it’s not.
I remember this being shared a while back…
This shows grass in foul territory and dirt in the 1st/3rd baselines. So I’m not sure when this turf thing came along. And while we’re on the subject, aren’t we a turf management school? Shouldn’t we be turning up our noses at artificial turf?
Apparently, this is a thing now, where foul territories are artificial turf and fair territory is grass. Here is Mississippi State’s baseball field doing the same thing.
Can’t say I like it there either, honestly. It just seems like one of those fads. Remember when everyone was going crazy with field/court colors?
School with a grey field and school with a glow in the dark basketball court meet on blue turf. Winning coach gets dumped with French fries. College athletics at its absolute best. https://t.co/crEKoeLKbXpic.twitter.com/Bpeod50Sy4
Did anyone ever really like those? Do people like them now? Have they ever gotten a recruit to come to the school? Have they ever scared a recruit away?
I don’t know. You tell me. I’ll hold final judgment, but things NC State fans don’t seem like they’re going to follow along.