Five Bulldogs named to the ABCA/Rawlings South All-Region teams

RUSTON, La. – Louisiana Tech’s Taylor Young and Steele Netterville each earned 2022 South All-Region First Team honors while Cole McConnell, Jonathan Fincher and Kyle Crigger were selected to the Second Team as announced by the American Baseball Coaches Association on Wednesday afternoon.

For a second consecutive year Young has earned a spot on the first team. The senior shortstop led the nation with 89 runs scored breaking his single-season record last year when he also led the nation with 83. The West Monroe native also finished first in C-USA in hits (87), walks (58) and stolen bases (28). Young led the squad with a .364 batting average and a .506 on-base percentage. Young was named a First-Team All-Conference honoree and earned the C-USA Tournament MVP.

Netterville, a two-time Academic All-American, joins Young on the first team as he capped off his final season as a Bulldog with a .313 batting average, 15 home runs and 67 RBI. The senior outfielder broke the all-time program record in doubles in a weekend series this season versus Florida Atlantic as he ended with 62 on his five-year career.

McConnell, a third-year sophomore, finished second in the conference and 13th in the nation with 76 RBI, setting the Tech single season record after breaking Ken Shamburg’s record that he set in 1988. The Beaumont, Texas native led the squad with 29 multi-hit games and 21 multi-RBI games while also holding the longest reached-base streak this year at 26 straight. The center fielder started in all 64 games and finished second on the team with a .336 batting average.

Redshirt junior Jonathan Fincher was also named to the second-team after leading the staff in wins with 8. The left-hander was also named an Academic All-American for the second time in 2022 while holding a 3.52 ERA in 79.1 innings. Fincher fanned 73 batters and allowed just nine walks finishing top 10 in the country in strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Bulldog closer Kyle Crigger rounds out the second-team honors. Crigger broke the Tech single-season appearance record in 2022 throwing in 37 games and breaking Kyle Griffen’s record in 2019 when he appeared in 34. The right-hander held a sub-two ERA through the conference tournament for the Bulldogs and ended the year with 10 saves. The Corinth, Mississippi native recorded a career-high eight strikeouts in 4.2 innings of relief at No. 14 LSU back on March 23 earning the win in extra innings.

Parker Bates, Hunter Wells and Taylor Young were the latest to earn South All-Region honors back in 2021.

The teams are voted on by members of the American Baseball Coaches Association and the process is led by the ABCA NCAA Division I All-America Committee, which is chaired by Tommy Raffo of Arkansas State University.

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