Bo's Baseball Bites: Special Mid-season All-Sunbelt Conference Honors

DALLAS – I have taken on a huge challenge this week: select midseason All-Southeastern Conference (East and West Divisions) and All-Sunbelt Conference teams, along with Players and Pitchers of the Year from those groups, who happen to be blessed with a plethora of famed college baseball standouts.

Alternate task: how about re-inventing the wheel or splitting the atom into a million more cells?

Actually, it is not that hard, but just think of the stars that may be left off these distinguished crews, as well as youngsters who may catch fire in the final month of the ’24 season and take their teams into always-interesting postseason activity.

We covered the SEC in a separate column, so let’s take a look at the Sunbelt Conference, generally regarded as the best baseball “mid-major” conference, if there are actually such things as mid-majors in the highly competitive field of college baseball.

The Sunbelt last year had four teams in the NCAA Field of 64, one more than the “major” conference Big 10.

Top 25 entries Coastal Carolina and Louisiana lead the “all” team with the likes of 3B Sam Antonnaci with a plus-.400 (.409) batting average through 35 games and freshman relief ace Dominic Carbone (4-1, 2.70 ERA) pacing the Chanticleers.

The always-competitive Ragin' Cajuns are relying on mid-season All-SBC pitcher Chase Morgan (4-1, 1.90 ERA) and 1B-P Trey LaFleur with a .400 batting average and solid fielding for a ULL squad off to a 28-9 start.

Appalachian State OF Banks Tolley also has been compiling All-America statistics with a .414 overall batting average through 33 games.

So, here goes, and as fans know, things can change drastically from mid-April to the NCAA Regionals, but these are educated guesses:

The BBB/CBC Midseason All-Sun Belt Conference Honors

1B Trey LaFleur, Louisiana

2B Mike Mancini, James Madison

SS Kyle DeBarge, Louisiana

3B (tie) Sam Antonacci, Coastal Carolina and Will Mize, Georgia State

OF Dalton McIntyre, Southern Miss

OF Banks Tolley, Appalachian State

OF Owen Avers, Marshall

C Matt Abshire, ULM

DH Wyatt Peifer, James Madison

UT Aidan Gilroy, Troy

SP Chase Morgan, Louisiana

SP Luke Lyon, Troy

SP Jackson Steensma, Appalachian State

RP Dominick Carbone, Coastal Carolina

Player of the Year – Sam Antonacci; Pitcher of the Year – Chase Morgan

Bo Carter is the Executive Director of the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) and is a long time professional in sports media and information. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and has plied his trade in the Southeastern Conference, the Southwest Conference, and the Big 12 Conference. In addition to his NCBWA duties, he also serves as a consultant and columnist for the National Football Foundation. Follow the NCBWA, which produces ranking polls for D1, D2, and D3, as well as naming All America teams at both the D1 and D2 levels and the Dick Howser Trophy (presented each year in Omaha at the Men’s College World Series) at @NCBWA. And, if you’re a college baseball fan, you don’t have to be media to be a member, check them out at ncbwa.com and join today!

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