OKLAHOMA CITY – With the Sooner Athletic Conference announcing its 2020 Baseball Scholar-Athlete list on Thursday, the Mid-America Christian baseball team successfully placed seven student-athletes in the prestigious group.
To receive SAC Scholar-Athlete honors, a player must be a junior or above by academic standing with at least a 3.5 cumulative grade-point average, appear on the eligibility certificate for an NAIA-recognized sport and have either attended two full years as a non-transfer or one full year as a transfer.
"I would like to congratulate our guys for being such excellent representations of what encompasses a student-athlete," said MACU Head Coach Brett Stanton. "They work hard on and off the field and we are proud to have them in our program."
Of the 40 players that earned the SAC Scholar-Athlete honor, the Evangels landed the second-most of all the teams in the league while Joshua Fernandez was only one of three players in the league to turn in a perfect 4.0 GPA.
The sophomore first baseman and pitcher, who is a junior academically, is a Biology and Ministry Leadership double major at Mid-America Christian.
In his first season with the program, Fernandez saw action in 25 games and made 21 starts, batting .213 with 20 runs batted in off of three doubles, a triple and two home runs while also scoring 19 runs. The Hondo, Texas product also tossed 4.1 innings of relief, allowing seven earned runs on nine hits with a walk and a strikeout.
The 5-10 lefty's best game in a MACU uniform came on Feb. 20 at Bacone, as he batted 2-for-4 with a walk and four RBIs as well as two runs in a near record-setting 27-5 victory over the Warriors.
An everyday starter in centerfield, junior outfielder Leonel Bejaran-Specht excelled on the field and in the classroom by posting a 3.96 GPA while majoring in Business Administration and Ethics at MACU.
Last season, the Santiago De Los Caballeros, Dominican Republic product appeared in 29 games and made 28 starts, slashing .211 with three doubles, two triples and a home run while crossing home plate 18 times and driving in 13.
Even with a shortened season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 5-10 speedster was still able to go 12-for-13 in stolen base attempts to finish with the eighth-most steals in a single season during the NAIA era (2008-present).
In a 19-10 win at Houston-Victoria on Feb. 8, Bejaran-Specht recorded a single-game career-high for hits with a 3-for-5 performance from the plate that included a double with two RBIs and two runs. Earlier in the series, Bejaran-Specht stole a career-best three bags against the Jaguars, coming off setting the personal mark in the season-opening Bethany series the week prior.
Despite missing nearly half of the season due to injury, junior infielder Andres Gonzalez made an enormous impact on both the team and in the classroom, turning in a cumulative GPA of 3.84 while pursuing a Bachelor's Degree in Biology.
Of the players on the team with 50 or more at-bats, the 5-11 Toronto, Ontario, Canada native posted the fourth-highest batting average on the team (.351) with five doubles and a triple while scoring 18 runs and driving in 10.
Gonzalez put together some big games from the plate for the Evangels, recording three hits in three different games, including a 3-for-3 with three-run performance at Bacone on Feb. 20 in his first game back after suffering an injury in the season-opener.
A Digital Marketing major at MACU, sophomore left-handed pitcher Ryan Wimbush found himself on the SAC Scholar-Athlete list after finishing the academic year with a 3.52 GPA.
Also a junior academically, the 6-2 Palm Beach Gardens, Florida native appeared in seven games and made six starts, the second-most of any pitcher on the team. Wimbush also threw the second-most innings of any starter (29.1) while his 3.99 earned run average is the ninth-best NAIA era single season mark for any pitcher to throw 20 or more innings. On the whole, Wimbush allowed 13 walks while striking out 29 for a 2.2/1 strikeout-to-walk-ratio.
In a 7-0 victory over Huston-Tillotson on Feb. 15, Wimbush tossed six scoreless innings, giving up just four hits and two walks while striking out five. He followed it up with another six-inning scoreless outing at Bacone on Feb. 21, allowing just two hits and a walk with another five strikeouts in the 3-0 win.
A workhorse as a starter and a reliever, junior righty Pedro Reyes closed out the 2019-20 academic year with a 3.86 GPA in Business Administration and Ethics.
Making seven appearances with four starts, the Havana, Cuba native posted a 4.32 ERA while finishing second on the team with 34 strikeouts and just 13 walks over 25 innings of work.
In MACU's 3-0 win over Bacone on Feb. 21, Reyes tossed six scoreless innings and struck out a career-high 11 batters while giving up only three hits and four walks. After the Evangels behind by a score of 5-0 to Doane on Mar. 9, Reyes came in during the fourth inning and shut down the red-hot Tigers bats, throwing 3.2 shutout innings with six strikeouts to propel MACU to a 15-5 comeback victory.
In his first season as a starter and reliever at MACU, junior Frank Souza compiled a 3.56 GPA while majoring in Business Administration and Ethics.
Seeing action in eight games and making four starts while working 28 innings, the Choctaw, Oklahoma product finished the season with a 4.50 ERA with only nine walks to go with 26 strikeouts.
Despite the Evangels suffering a 1-0 tough luck loss in 10 innings to Friends (Kan.) on Feb. 18, Souza pitched a stellar six innings, ending his no-decision outing with only seven hits and one walk conceded to go along with three strikeouts.
Junior reliever Elvis Polanco rounded out the honorees after finishing the academic year with a 3.76 GPA while majoring in Business Administration and Ethics at Mid-America Christian.
The 6-4 lefty from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic's lone appearance of the season came in a 19-10 win over Houston-Victoria on Feb. 8, throwing 0.2 innings in the outing.
To view the complete list of MACU's Scholar-Athlete recipients, check out the list below.
SAC Baseball Scholar-Athletes
Leonel Bejaran-Specht
Joshua Fernandez*
Andres Gonzalez
Elvis Polanco
Pedro Reyes
Frank Souza
Ryan Wimbush
*-denotes 4.0 GPA
