Baseball Dominates NJCBA Awards & Teams
6/3/2014 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
June 3, 2014
JERSEY CITY, N.J. - For the second year in a row, Seton Hall University is the biggest winner in the New Jersey Collegiate Baseball Association (NJCBA) post-season awards as the Pirates claimed four of the organization's top six honors in voting by the eight New Jersey Division I member coaches. Montgomery High School can stake claim to the top two awards as a pair of former high school teammates walked away with hardware with Seton Hall junior shortstop D.J. Ruhlman (Belle Mead, N.J.) and senior right-handed pitcher Josh Prevost (Belle Mead, N.J.) earning Division I Player and Pitcher of the Year, respectively, for the 2014 season. Their skipper, Seton Hall head coach Rob Sheppard was selected as the Division I NJCBA Coach of the Year by his peers for the second straight season.
Additionally, Seton Hall freshman left-hander Anthony Pacillo (Lyndhurst, N.J.) is the Division I Rookie Pitcher of the Year. Rutgers University took home the other two major awards with redshirt-freshman Max Hermann claiming the state's Division I Fireman of the Year and outfielder Mike Carter tabbed the Division I Rookie Player of the Year.
Prevost's selection as NJCBA Pitcher of the Year was a formality as the big 6-foot-8, 220-pound righty dominated opponents from start to finish. The 2014 BIG EAST Pitcher of the Year and Louisville Slugger NCAA Division I All-America Second-Teamer wins the award unanimously. He was a six-time BIG EAST Pitcher of the Week and a three-time Honor Roll selection, finishing the year with a BIG EAST lead in wins, ERA, opposing batting average, strikeouts, innings pitched, complete games and shutouts. Prevost was named to the College Baseball Hall of Fame Pitcher of the Year Watch List and a semifinalist for the prestigious Golden Spikes Award. Overall, Prevost posted a 12-2 ledger and 1.62 ERA in 15 starts, throwing six complete games and three shutouts. In 116.1 innings he struck out 111 batters and walked just 20 -- a 5.5:1 strikeout to walk ratio -- and had a staggering .158 opposing batting average. A three-time All-State selection, he allowed just 21 earned runs and 64 hits all season.
Ruhlman, the BIG EAST co-Player of the Year, is the second consecutive Seton Hall shortstop to be the state's Player of the Year -- Giuseppe Papaccio was the 2013 winner. The 6-foot-1, 185-pounder was named a semifinalist for the Gregg Olsen Award (National Breakout Player of the Year) and a watch list member for the Brooks Wallace Shortstop of the Year Award. A three-time BIG EAST Weekly Honor Roll selection, he ranked in the top five in the league in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, runs scores, hits and steals. He finished the year batting .351 (65-185) in 49 games (47 starts), scoring 43 runs with 28 RBIs and 16 extra-base hits (11 doubles, two triples, three home runs; 89 total bases). A .421 on-base percentage (19 walks) contributed to 15 steals in 20 attempts and he posted a .965 fielding percentage with only seven errors at short all year.
Sheppard, in his 11th season as head coach of the Pirates, wins the Coach of the Year award for the third time (2001, 2013, 2014) after leading Seton Hall to a 39-15 record, including 19-3 at home, and 11-7 in the BIG EAST, with the Pirates finishing third in the conference tournament. His squad posted numerous impressive wins over the 54-game campaign, including a three-game sweep of nationally-ranked Arizona in Tucson in early March.
Pacillo, a 6-foot-1, 205-pounder lefty out of Saint Peter's Prep, is the NJCBA Rookie Pitcher of the Year after boasting a 4-2 ledger in 13 appearances (nine starts) with a 2.98 ERA. He chalked up a .253 opposing batting average with one complete game shutout. In 63.1 innings he struck out 36 while walking just 13 and allowed 21 earned runs and 59 hits on the season.
Joining Prevost and Ruhlman on the 2014 NJCBA Division I All-State First Team are teammates Sal Annunziata (Bronx, N.Y.), Luke Cahill (Tinton Falls, N.J.), Kyle Grimm (Bergenfield, N.J.), Dillon Hamlin (Colts Neck, N.J.) and Derek Jenkins (Annandale, N.J.).
Joining Pacillo on the 2014 NJCBA Division I All-State Second Team are teammates Chris Selden (Allenhurst, N.J.) and Zack Weigel (Oak Park, N.J.).
Overall, Seton Hall was the most-honored program with 11 players and/or coaches receive First or Second-Team All-State honors or major awards, including seven players on the First Team. Rutgers was second overall with nine all-state recipients, including seven First-Teamers, as the Pirates and Scarlet Knights combined for 14 of 15 first-team selections. Monmouth was third with five selections, followed by NJIT with three.
Pacillo, Joe DiBenedetto (Staten Island, N.Y.), Mikael-Ali Mogues (New York, N.Y.) and Ryan Testani (Shelton, Conn.) were named to the NJCBA Division I All-Rookie Team.
