Baseball Release (2006) - Guilford Baseball Students Honored - Guilford College

• THREE GUILFORD STUDENTS GARNER REGIONAL BASEBALL HONORS

      Greensboro, NC (5/18/06) -- Guilford College's Rob Bittner and Dave Whigham earned Second Team American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA)/Rawlings All-South Region recognition Thursday. The Quakers' Ricky Seabolt garnered honorable mention all-region laurels.

Bittner, a senior, received honorable mention all-region honors last year and First Team All-Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) kudos this spring. He hit .372 with a school record-tying 13 homers in his fourth and final Guilford campaign. The first baseman also set school marks for runs batted in (54) and putouts (362) in a season. Bittner leads the league with his 13 home runs and stands fourth among the ODAC's best with his team-high .718 slugging percentage. His 54 RBIs rank second in the league and his 13 doubles stand seventh. Bittner won the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Division III Hitter of the Week Award for games of April 10-16 after hitting .500 with five homers and 17 RBIs in five games. He tied the school standard with three homers in a game with Eastern Mennonite April 15 and had four dingers among his seven hits and 11 RBIs in the twinbill with the Royals. He concluded his Guilford tenure with the school's career slugging percentage record (.649) and ranked second on the Quakers' all-time batting average (.377) and RBI (150) lists. His 32 homers stand third in Guilford history.

      Whigham's ODAC-leading eight wins mark the most victories by a Guilford hurler since Joe Dooley's '02 school-record 12-3 season in 2002. The Second Team All-ODAC selection went 8-2 in 13 appearances with a 3.04 earned run average. He led the Quakers with two shutouts and 93 strikeouts in 71.0 innings. Opponents hit .244 against him, the fourth-lowest figure in the league. Whigham's 93 strikeouts place sixth in school history and his 11.79 strikeouts per nine innings stand second. He ranks among the ODAC's best in ERA (4th) and innings (4th). Whigham fanned nine or more batters in six games, including a career-high 13 in the Quakers' 6-2 win over Lynchburg March 4. He struck out 10 Southern Virginia batters in five shutout innings Feb. 24 and earned the win in relief against Methodist March 15, the Quakers' first triumph over the Monarchs since 1992.

Seabolt, a Second Team All-ODAC honoree, led the Quakers in batting average (.419), hits (70), doubles (15), runs (48) and stolen bases (8). His 133 fielding chances at shortstop broke the school record Jake Lubel set in 2004. Seabolt missed the Guilford mark for hits in a season by one and posted the fifth-best batting average in school history. His 15 doubles rate fourth all time and his 48 runs rank eighth. Guilford's leadoff hitter stands among the ODAC's best in batting average (3rd), hits (T1st), runs (2nd) and doubles (T3rd). Seabolt ranked second on the team with 34 RBIs and had four homers in 40 games. He showed the way with 21 multi-hit games and had 10 contests with at least two RBIs. Seabolt led Guilford with a .395 batting average, 34 hits and 23 runs in 21 games with ODAC foes. He had hits in all but six games his year, including four four-hit contests. Seabolt went 7-for-8 with four RBIs and six runs scored in the Quakers' doubleheader sweep of Eastern Mennonite April 15.

      The trio helped rookie head coach Nick Black's '02 Quakers to a 24-18 overall record, 10-8 in the ODAC. Guilford won over 20 games for the sixth straight season and set the school standard with a .337 team batting average. The Quakers' campaign ended in the six-team ODAC Baseball Tournament for the fourth time in five years with a fourth-place showing.