Two Blue Devils Named to All-ACC Team
On Monday, the awards were announced in terms of ACC baseball. Two Duke players were named to the All-ACC second team.
Sophomore second baseman Andy Perez and junior third baseman Jordan Betts were named to the team. They were the first two Blue Devil position players to earn All-ACC honors since Nate Freiman (now in the big leagues with Oakland) and Jeremy Gould back in 2009. Perez is the first Duke second baseman to garner this honor since Quinton McCracken in 1992. Betts is the first Duke third baseman since Jeff Becker in 1999.
Perez led the team in hitting at .316 with 67 hits, five triples, and 18 stolen bases. He batted primarily from the leadoff spot and was the only ACC second baseman to rank in the top 15 in hits or total bases.
Betts has started all 164 games of his career. Batting from the cleanup spot, he hit a career-high seven homeruns and led the team in RBIs (48). His RBIs rank 12th in the conference.
The top two teams in the ACC took the big awards.
North Carolina third baseman Colin Moran, widely considered one of the top hitters in college baseball, was named Player of the Year. Prior to last night’s win over Florida State, he was hitting .376 and had a .504 on-base percentage. His 83 RBIs are tops in the country (by a wide margin). His teammate, Kent Emanuel, was named the Pitcher of the Year. He is 9-3 with a 2.28 ERA in 102.2 innings pitched. Both are semifinalists for the Dick Howser Award, given to the top collegiate baseball player.
Despite being young, Virginia surprised everyone by finishing the regular season ranked fifth in the country by Baseball America and won their series against ACC regular season champion UNC. They were picked to finish third in the Coastal Division during the preseason. That garnered head coach Brian O’Connor with being named Coach of the Year for the third time in four years. The Cavaliers had the second best record in the conference at 22-8, but are the three seed in the tournament.
UVA outfielder Joe McCarthy was named Freshman of the Year after hitting .333 with 47 RBIs.







