McNeese Baseball: Dion picks up three more national honors, joined by Rasbeary with SLC weekly honors

LAKE CHARLES – The national honors keep rolling in for McNeese pitcher Will Dion when on Tuesday, the redshirt sophomore was named National Pitcher of the Week by the NCBWA, Perfect Game and D1 Baseball. In addition, he garnered Southland Conference Pitcher of the Week honors while Cowboy right fielder Clayton Rasbeary was named the league’s Hitter of the Week.

Dion tied a school record with 19 strikeouts last Friday while tossing a 5-0 complete game win over Prairie View. It was the first complete game and shutout in his collegiate career.

The national awards announced on Tuesday join the honors he received by Collegiate Baseball on Monday.

In the win, Dion threw 103 pitches with 83 of those going for strikes. Only once did he allow a runner to get to third base and only four runners on base the entire game. He retired the first 13 batters faced before giving up a walk and a single with one out in the fifth inning.

In three innings he struck out batters for all three outs and had two strikeouts an inning four other frames and faced 30 batters, just three over the minimum.

Rasbeary hit .600 for the week in a four-game sweep over Prairie View. The redshirt senior from Rockwell, Texas hit four doubles, a triple, knocked in six runs and score three.

He opened the scoring in the series opener with a sac fly in the third and drove in two more runs with a triple in the fifth inning. After following it up with a 3-for-3 outing in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, Rasbeary’s lone hit in the second game was a walk-off double to secure a 6-5 victory.

He wrapped up the weekend with a pair of doubles in the finale, one of which knocked in two runs.