ORLANDO, Fla. – For the second consecutive year, Carson-Newman baseball placed five players on the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District team. Pitchers Andrew Bench, Hunter Harritan and Grif Hughes were joined by position players Aiden Gibson and Trey Miller on the academic list announced this afternoon.
Bench, Gibson and Miller each earn their first career honors, while Harritan and Hughes log Academic All-District honors for the second straight season.
Pitching in 12 games, Bench threw 28 2/3 innings and posted an 8.48 earned run average. Against the eventual Southeast regional champions Catawba, the right-hander tossed four scoreless innings with three strikeouts on Mar 24.
Becoming C-N's everyday shortstop, Gibson finished his second year in the Orange and Blue with a .259 batting average appearing in 49 of the team's 50 games. He hit his first career home run in a 9-8 win against Lenoir-Rhyne on Mar 29. Went on to hit two more home runs, one week apart from each other in mid April. Gibson hit an impressive .338 on the road and helped turn 21 double plays with a .942 fielding percentage.
Harritan pitched in 19 games this season and went unbeaten with a 3-0 record and recorded a league-high ten saves. His ten saves are fourth-most in a single season in program history. The right-hander pitched 34 innings and had the team's lowest ERA at 2.91. He struck out 39 batters, and averaged more than 10 per nine innings.
Of his 19 appearances, 14 came in league play. Remarkably, Harritan recorded a win or a save in 12 of those 14 conference games. The second-team all-region pitcher had a stretch of nine straight games from mid-March to mid-April where he recorded a win or save in all nine of those efforts on the mound. He tied his career high for strikeouts with five in back-to-back games against Emory & Henry and Catawba.
Hughes marked career highs in wins (9), innings pitched (58 1/3), strikeouts (71) and in earned run average (3.86). Carson-Newman won 14 of the 20 games Hughes pitched in this season.
He was spectacular on multiple occasions that helped result in wins for his team. In his second appearance in conference play this season, Hughes threw 4 2/3 innings with seven strikeouts to help blank Newberry and earned his first win of the year. Into the final month of the season, Hughes had a stretch where he pitched 11 consecutive scoreless innings over the span of four appearances. In his final 23 innings of the season, the Knoxville native allowed just four earned runs, walked five and struck out 26. He threw multiple innings of scoreless baseball nine different times this season.
Miller played in 42 games, hitting .202 at the plate driving in eight runs. The middle infielder swiped seven bases and recorded six extra base hits. He had five multi-hit efforts and had an on-base streak of eight games during the season.
The 2024 Academic All‐District Baseball Teams, selected by College Sports Communicators, recognize the nation's top student‐athletes for their combined performances on the diamond and in the classroom. Academic All-District® honorees were considered for advancement to the CSC Academic All-America® ballot. First-, second- and third-team Academic All-America® honorees will be announced July 2, 2024.
