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Texas Lutheran University

1
Southwestern SU 16-24
3
Winner Texas Lutheran TLU 26-13
Southwestern SU
16-24
1
Final
3
Texas Lutheran TLU
26-13
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Southwestern SU 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 5 1
Texas Lutheran TLU 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 X 3 8 2

W: Malinovsky, Nathan (9-1) L: Will Preston (4-2)

Game Recap: Baseball |

Malinovsky, Burnett lead Bulldog Baseball honorees on All-SCAC


SEGUIN, Texas -- In exclusive 2016 All-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) voting by the conference's head coaches, Texas Lutheran redshirt freshman right-hander Nathan Malinovsky (New Braunfels/New Braunfels) was selected the league's Pitcher-of-the-Year and the Freshman-of-the-Year, and TLU Head Coach Greg Burnett was named the SCAC Coach-of-the-Year. 

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As for the All-SCAC team, Trinity earned a league-high eight First Team selections while Texas Lutheran University followed with three. When totaling combined First and Second Team selections, the league's top four teams dominated the balloting as Trinity had 12 honorees and Texas Lutheran had eight. Centenary had seven, and Southwestern had three.

Malinovsky, a freshman right-hander from New Braunfels, is the first player in SCAC history to earn both Freshman- and Pitcher-of-the-Year honors in the same season. He is currently leading the league in earned run average (2.19), complete games (5) and shutouts (2) and sports an 8-1 mark heading into this weekend's conference tournament.

(Malinovky tossed a complete-game, five-hitter Friday afternoon to improve to 9-1 and lower his ERA to 1.97.)

Before the confernce tournament, Malinovsky's eight wins were the second-best in the SCAC as were his 78.0 innings pitched. Malinovsky has struck out 55 batters (third in the SCAC) this season and opponents are managing just a .221 batting average. The freshman earned SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Week honors last week when he pitched the Bulldogs to a share of the SCAC regular-season title by tossing a complete-game, four-hit shutout at Southwestern.

In addition to making league history by earning both Freshman- and Pitcher-of-the-Year, Malinovsky is the first Texas Lutheran player to earn a SCAC baseball postseason major award. The Bulldogs joined the SCAC prior to the 2014 season.

In earning Pitcher-of-the-Year honors, Malinovksy received four votes from the coaches. Sophomore right-hander Kaleb Kirk of Centenary College picked up two votes while junior left-hander Chris Tate of Trinity received the remaining first-place vote.

Malinovsky earned five first-place votes in the Freshman-of-the-Year balloting. First-year right-hander Thomas Martin of University of Dallas and first-year left-hander Tyler Polasek of Southwestern University split the remaining two first-place votes.

Greg Burnett, in his 18th season with the Texas Lutheran program and ninth as the team's head coach, is the third winningest baseball coach in school history (242-139 heading into this weekend's SCAC tournament) and his .635 winning percentage is the second-highest in school history (trailing only current Athletics Director and former head coach Bill Miller).

Burnett has led the Bulldogs to postseason appearances in each of the last seven seasons, including a trip to the SCAC championship final in TLU's inaugural season in the conference in 2014.

This year's squad won a share of the regular season conference title with a 14-4 league mark and earned the top seed and hosting privileges for the 2016 SCAC Baseball Tournament.

In TLU's three seasons in the SCAC, Burnett has led his squad to a cumulative 38-16 league mark (.704) â€" the second-best mark of any team in the league over that stretch. The COTY honor is the first for Burnett since his Bulldogs joined the SCAC prior to the 2014 season, but he and his staff were recognized as West Division Coaching Staff of the Year in 2009 as members of the American Southwest Conference.

Burnett received four votes from his peers in earning SCAC Coach-of-the-Year honors, narrowly outnumbering Trinity's Tim Scannell who received the remaining three votes.

2016 SCAC Player-of-the-Year
Jeremy Wolf, Trinity University, Senior, OF, Scottsdale, Ariz.

2016 SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Year
Nathan Malinovsky, Texas Lutheran University, Freshman, RHP, New Braunfels, Texas

2016 SCAC Freshman-of-the-Year
Nathan Malinovsky, Texas Lutheran University, Freshman, RHP, New Braunfels, Texas

2016 SCAC Coach-of-the-Year
Greg Burnett, Texas Lutheran University, 14-4 SCAC / 25-13 overall â€" top seed for SCAC Tournament

For the complete 2016 SCAC All-Conference baseball team, click here.

 
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