Five Ohio Valley Conference baseball players have all been named to the 2009 American Baseball Coaches Association/Rawlings All-Region Teams.The players include three selections from Eastern Illinois - Jordan Tokarz, Josh Mueller and Mike Recchia - along with Drew Lee from Morehead State and Daniel Calhoun from Murray State.
Morehead State's Lee was the lone first-team selection, earning honors in the South Region. For that Lee's name will now go onto the national ballot for All-America consideration. He has already earned a third-team All-American honor from Collegiate Baseball. On the field Lee had one of MSU's best offensive seasons in school history. He set a school record for hits in a season with 86 and also had a team high 18 doubles and 17 home runs. He had 67 RBI, scored 62 runs and totaled a league-best 159 bases during the 52 games MSU played this year. He ranked in the top five in the OVC in homers, doubles, RBI and runs scored and his total base final stats were only three shy of the MSU single season mark. He ended with a .413 batting average and was named First-Team All-OVC. He was also one of 15 semifinalists for the 2009 Brooks Wallace Award, which honors NCAA Division I's best shortstop. Drew was also named OVC Player of the Week and was listed on the College Baseball Foundation and Diamond Sports National All-Star Lineup on April 23.
Calhoun, a junior pitcher, was a second-team selection in the South Region. The 29th-round draft pick of the St. Louis Cardinals is coming off one of the most successful season’s in Thoroughbred history, as he went 11-3 with a 2.32 ERA. He tied former Major League All-Star Kirk Rueter’s record for wins, while setting a new-single season mark with 11 complete games. Calhoun struckout 85 and walked only six in 97 innings and his 0.56 walks-per-nine-innings is the best in college baseball this season. Calhoun was named the Ohio Valley Conference Pitcher of the Year after allowing three earned runs or less in 13 of his 14 starts. In his second start of the season, Calhoun tossed a seven-inning complete-game four-hit shutout in a 1-0 victory over Illinois State. He came back one-week later against North Dakota State and struck out a career-best 14, while allowing one unearned run in a two-hit complete game. Calhoun played a key role in helping the ?Breds to their best season in over three decades with a 34-21-1 overall record.
The squads were rounded out by three players from Eastern Illinois, all of who were second-team picks in the Mideast Region. Eastern joined Indiana and Ohio State as the only schools with three All-Mideast Region selections.
Tokarz and Recchia were also First Team All-OVC selections. Mueller has served as EIU's No. 1 weekend starter each of his first two collegiate seasons and is pitching for the Wareham Gatemen this summer in the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League.
Tokarz led the team in home runs (13), runs scored (55) and sacrifice flies (7). He batted .417 and struck out only three times in conference play. The senior finished his EIU career riding a 10-game hitting streak and also posted a team-best 10-game RBI streak from March 18 to April 1. Defensively, he played a role in 26 of 38 double plays the Panthers turned. During his two seasons in Charleston, Tokarz started at second base in 106 of the 107 games EIU played.
Mueller posted an 8-1 record during his sophomore year, including an impressive non-conference win at South Florida in the opening game of the annual spring break trip. He started the first game of every weekend of the season and EIU posted an 11-2 mark in those contests. In the finale of the 13-game win streak, he struck out a season-high nine and pitched the first nine-inning complete game by a Panther since 2007 in a victory at UT Martin. Mueller closed the month of April with seven scoreless innings in a victory against SIU Edwardsville.
Recchia went 8-2 during his sophomore year, winning each of his first six weekend starts. His impressive start to the season featured a career-high 10-strikeout performance at Southeastern Louisiana and a victory against nationally-ranked Oklahoma in the championship game of South Florida's four-team weekend tournament in Tampa. He struck out nine in each of his first two OVC starts, taking a no-hitter into the sixth inning of a two-hit shutout against Tennessee Tech. Recchia posted the lowest ERA (3.02) of any EIU pitcher in the OVC era (1997-present) to start at least 10 games.