The Bradley Baseball season ended three weeks ago, but outfielder Mike Tauchman (Palatine, Ill./William Fremd H.S.) is still making history for the Braves. Tuesday Tauchman was announced as Bradley's first-ever, Rawlings/American Baseball Coaches Association first-team All-American.
Tauchman becomes the second player in program history to earn first-team All-America honors from any organization, following fellow outfielder Bob Koeppel, who earned first-team honors from The Sporting News in 1971, when he led the nation in runs batted in per game. Tauchman is the fifth ABCA All-American in Bradley history, but Lee Utt (1956), Wyman Carey (1957), Mike Dunne (1984) and Doug Robertson (1996) all were second-teamers.
The ABCA becomes the fourth organization to name Tauchman an All-American. He earned second-team national recognition from Louisville Slugger/Collegiate Baseball, Baseball America and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. Tauchman also landed first-team Rawlings All-Midwest Region honors from the ABCA Tuesday.
The 2013 Joe Carter Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year, Tauchman continues to lead the nation with a .425 batting average and he ranks fourth with a .513 on-base percentage. With LSU's Alex Bregman (.374) now the nation's active leading hitter as the College World Series continues this week, Tauchman is well-positioned to become the fourth Bradley Baseball player to lead the nation in a statistical category and the first since Koeppel led the nation by averaging 1.46 RBI's per game in 1971. Pitcher Wyman Carey led the nation with a 0.37 earned run average in 1957 and Joe Napoli led the nation with a .491 batting average in 1960.
Tauchman's .425 batting average in 49 games is the best-ever by a Brave with at least 100 at-bats in a season (Napoli was 27-for-55 during Bradley's 15-game season in 1960) and is the best by a Valley player since Wichita State's Pat Magness led the league with a .464 average in 1998.
Tauchman also leads The Valley by averaging 1.1 runs scored per game and 1.9 runs produced per game (a combination of runs scored, plus runs batted in, minus home runs). He also is second in the league with 28 stolen bases and his eight outfield assists are tied for the seventh-most nationally.
Selected by the Colorado Rockies in the 10th round of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft earlier this month, Tauchman has been assigned to the Tri-City Dust Devils in the short-season Northwest League. He made his professional debut Sunday and singled in his first career plate appearance.
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