Complete D3baseball.com All-Mideast Region Team
BEREA, Ohio – Baldwin Wallace University senior standout pitcher and shortstop Mark Zimmerman (Akron/ Green) is the 2016 d3baseball.com Division III Mideast Region Player of the Year. That honor follows his being named as the Ohio Athletic Conference Dr. Bob Fisher Player of the Year last week.
Zimmerman is both the most valuable and most versatile player in both the Mideast Region and OAC, and was named to the first-team as a utility player. It also marks the third straight season that he has been named to the All-Mideast Region team by d3baseball.com, and it is the second consecutive season he has been named to the first-team. Zimmerman earned second-team honors as a sophomore in 2014.
In addition to being named as the OAC Player of the Year last week, Zimmerman also is just the third OAC and first-ever BW baseball player to earn first-team All-OAC honors for four straight years.
Zimmerman led the team both at the plate as its top hitter and on the mound as its staff ace. He batted .368 (60-for-163) with team-highs of 60 base hits, 15 doubles, 30 walks, a perfect 17-for-17 in stolen bases, a .472 on-base average and a .540 slugging average. He also was second with 40 runs scored and three home runs and tied for the most triples with two and tied for second with 33 runs batted-in (RBI). On the mound, he started a single-season school-record 12 games, had a 7-4 record with a 2.50 earned run average (ERA), two complete games and a pair of shutouts (one individual and one combined) and struck out a single-season school-record-tying 91 batters and walked just 15 in 75 and two-third innings pitched. That equates to 10.82 strikeouts and just 1.78 walks per nine innings pitched.
For his career, Zimmerman played in 171 games and had a .368 batting average with a school-record 242 hits in 662 at-bats with 157 runs scored, 52 doubles, 11 triples, 11 homers, 142 RBI and 40 stolen bases in 45 attempts. On the mound, he made 31 career appearances (he did not pitch as a freshman), including 23 starts, had a 13-7 record with four complete games. In 157 and one-third innings pitched, he allowed 136 hits and 71 runs (57 earned) and struck out 177 batters and walked just 58. Opposing hitters batted just .227 against him.
"Mark is extremely deserving of this honor," said sixth-year Yellow Jacket Head Coach Brian Harrison. "He had an outstanding year both at the plate and on the mound. It also should be noted that Mark has had one of the finest careers on the baseball diamond in the long and rich tradition of BW baseball. We are very proud of Mark, all that he has accomplished in the classroom and on the baseball field and know that he will be successful in every endeavor of his life."
In addition to excelling on the baseball diamond, Zimmerman carried a fine 3.39 grade point average in the classroom and graduated with Bachelor of Arts degree from the BW School, of Arts & Sciences.
The Yellow Jackets compiled a 23-20 overall and 13-5 OAC record this season, tied for second place during the OAC regular season and advanced to the 2016 OAC Championship Game. Zimmerman and the BW senior class of 2016 graduates with a 111-65 record, three OAC Tournament appearances, including advancing to the OAC Championship Game twice, two NCAA Division III National Tournament appearances, including winning one Regional title (Mid-Atlantioc Region inn 2014) and one NCAA Division III College World Series appearance (2014).