CHICO, Calif. – The Cal State San Marcos baseball team placed four on the 2022 CCAA Baseball All-Conference Team, the league office announced on Tuesday.
Earning second team honors for the Cougars were shortstop Luke Reece, starting pitcher Garrett Apker and utility player Ethan Rivera while third baseman Kevin Van Linge was listed as an honorable mention.
Reece ended the season with the fifth-highest batting average in the CCAA at .393 and ranked ninth with 64 hits. Reece also led CSUSM with 39 runs and 80 total bases while ranking second on the team with a .929 OPS, a .491 slugging percentage, a .438 on-base percentage, 12 doubles and 37 RBIs. He tied for the team's longest hitting streak of the season at 15 consecutive games and multiple hits in 18 games.
Apker finished the season with the third-most strikeouts in the CCAA at 80 and had the second-lowest opponent batting average at .221 in 66.2 of action. He finished the season with a 5-3 record, two complete games, a 4.18 ERA and a 1.32 WHIP in 12 starts. In his final outing of the season, he broke the CSUSM all-time record for strikeouts and ended his collegiate career with 173.
Rivera wrapped up his season with a.338 batting average, an .809 OPS, 54 hits, 11 doubles, two home runs, a .444 slugging percentage and a team-leading 40 RBIs. He ranked first in the CCAA and 11th nationally with 11 sacrifice flies this season. Rivera was also the sixth-toughest player to strikeout in the conference at 10.7 at-bats between strikeouts. He led the Cougars with 11 multi-RBI games and was third for multi-hit games with 16.
Van Linge ranked second on the team in batting average (.359), runs (38) and hits (60) while leading the club in on-base percentage (.460) and stolen bases (7). He also tallied an .867 OPS, 30 RBIs, four doubles, two triples and 22 walks in 47 games. Van Linge was the fourth-toughest player to strikeout in the CCAA at 12.8 at-bats between strikeouts. He ended the season with a team-leading 17-game reached-base streak and 20 multi-hit games.