Bolt Named Preseason All-MVC

Bradley Baseball picked fifth in Valley preseason coaches poll

2020 MVC Baseball Preseason Poll

Bobby Parker, Associate AD for Communications Baseball 1/28/2020 10:05:00 AM

ST. LOUIS – Bradley senior outfielder Dan Bolt (Morton, IL/Morton H.S.) was named to the 13-player Missouri Valley Conference baseball preseason all-league team and the Braves were picked to finish fifth in the league race, according to the poll of The Valley's eight head coaches revealed Tuesday.

Bolt enters his senior season next month as the only veteran outfielder for the Braves, having played in 100 games with 85 starts during his first three seasons. Last week, D1Baseball.com ranked Bolt the 26th-best hitter in the nation, according to a composite set of analytical data.

A second-team All-Missouri Valley Conference pick in 2019, Bolt hit .327 with 11 home runs and 40 RBI's last season, when he joined DBU's Bryce Ball (1.057) as the only two hitters in The Valley to post an OPS better than 1.000. Bolt's 1.048 OPS was the best by a Bradley player since current New York Yankees OF Mike Tauchman's 1.110 during his Joe Carter MVC Player-of-the-Year in 2013 and Bolt's .595 slugging percentage in 2019 was the best by a Brave since Max Murphy slugged .598 in 2015. He reached base safely in each of Bradley's final 27 regular-season games last season.

Bolt was named the MVC Player of the Week and was listed among Collegiate Baseball Newspaper's National Players of the Week April 22, 2019 after helping the Braves to a 4-game road-swing split at Illinois and Dallas Baptist by batting .500 (8-16) with four home runs and seven RBIs.

Bolt is one of Bradley's six returning starting position players from the 2019 squad that finished 31-19 overall and tied for fourth in the MVC standings with an 11-10 league mark. The Braves are coming off consecutive 30-win seasons for the first time since 1995 (30-27) and 1996 (40-22) and with back-to-back 11-win Valley records, Bradley has finished with winning league records in consecutive seasons for the first time since the 1986 and 1987 squads both went 11-9 in conference play.

Including Bolt (.327), the Braves return their top four hitters by batting average in 2020: senior SS Luke Shadid (.344), senior 3B Brendan Dougherty (.283) and sophomore 1B Connor O'Brien (.282). The Valley's second-team shortstop in 2019, Shadid led The Valley in hits per game (1.44), runs per game (0.98) and runs produced per game (1.62). Dougherty was honorable mention All-MVC for a third consecutive year last season and his streak of 144 consecutive games started at third base is the nation's longest current streak at the hot corner. O'Brien was left off the 2020 MVC preseason all-conference team, despite his status as the league's returning first-team All-MVC first baseman. He led the Braves by batting .351 in Valley play during his freshman campaign last year.

Although Bradley finished fifth in the preseason Valley coaches poll, the Braves were one of four teams to receive at least one first-place vote and their 38 poll points were closer to second-place Missouri State (51 points) than sixth-place Evansville (21). Defending MVC regular-season champion Dallas Baptist (61) received five first-place votes to top the poll, followed by Missouri State (51) and 2019 NCAA Regional qualifiers Illinois State (49) and Indiana State (40).

Bradley will open its 120th baseball season by visiting Incarnate Word Feb. 14-16. After playing their first 20 games away from home with 3-game series at Kentucky and Mercer in the early-season schedule, the Braves will open their home schedule March 25 at Dozer Park against Western Illinois. The Braves also will host Missouri State (March 27-29), Illinois (March 31), Iowa (April 1), Indiana State (April 10-12) and DBU (May 8-10) at Dozer Park this spring.

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