Trio of Bruins Named Collegiate Baseball All-Americans
May 26, 2020 | Baseball
LOS ANGELES โ Three members of the UCLA baseball team were named All-Americans by Collegiate Baseball on Tuesday morning, as junior right-handed pitcher Zach Pettway garnered First Team honors while sophomore shortstop Matt McLain and junior righty Holden Powell each earned Second Team acclaim.
This is the second consecutive All-America honor for Powell, who was a unanimous pick in 2019 en route to NCBWA Stopper of the Year honors. McLain and Pettway earned the first All-America awards of their career, though Pettway was a Freshman All-American in 2018.
Pettway was one of the top pitchers in the college game in 2020, posting a 3-0 ERA with a 1.05 ERA and a 29-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. D1Baseball had the Long Beach native as the top pitcher in their analytical rankings of juniors and the "Most Impressive Pitcher" in the Pac-12 Conference.ย
He was particularly dominant in his second and third starts of the year, limiting St. Mary's and Oklahoma State to just five combined hits over 13 2/3 innings of shutout ball. The consecutive strong performances earned him back-to-back Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week Awards, making him the first Bruin to repeat as the winner of that award since Trevor Bauer in 2011. For his career, Pettway is 13-6 with a 3.44 ERA.
McLain was in the middle of a breakout sophomore campaign before the season was abruptly canceled, as he slashed .397/.422/.621 while leading the team in batting, RBIs (19), hits (23), home runs (4), total bases (36), and OPS (1.043). The Tustin, Calif. native was especially impressive at the Frisco College Classic, batting .471 with seven RBIs in three games en route to tourney MVP honors as UCLA won the de facto tournament title.
Powell was dominant again at the back end of the bullpen for UCLA, allowing no runs and striking out 20 in just 9 1/3 innings. He picked up three saves and surrendered just three hits over the course of the season.
Stay up-to-date on all things UCLA Baseball by following the team Twitter account: @UCLABaseball.
