Tulane Trio Named To College Baseball Foundation National Team
Jun 1, 2005 | Baseball
June 1, 2005
NEW ORLEANS, La. - Tulane University baseball standouts Brian Bogusevic and Micah Owings were named to the College Baseball Foundation National Honors Team, and Green Wave head coach Rick Jones was named one of three CBF Coaches of the Year, the organization announced Wednesday.
Bogusevic, a junior from Oak Lawn, Ill., earned a spot on the team as a pitcher, while Owings, a junior from Gainesville, Ga., claimed the honor as a utility athlete. Jones, meanwhile, shared Coach of the Year honors with Pat Casey of Oregon State and Pat McMahon of Florida.
Bogusevic, who is a semifinalist for the CBF-sponsored Brooks Wallace Award, earned National Honors Team recognition after leading the Green Wave with a 2.57 ERA, 12 wins, 112.0 innings pitched and a .235 opponent batting average while ranking second on the club with 114 strikeouts. He posted eight-plus strikeout performances nine times, including 10 at Louisville (March 26) and vs. TCU (May 20), and a career-best 13 in the season-opener vs. Southeast Missouri State (Feb. 11).
A first-team All-Conference USA honoree, Bogusevic has also made his presence felt at the plate. Despite a nagging hamstring injury that kept him out of the lineup for most of the first two months of the season, he is hitting .324 (35-for-108) with seven doubles, 20 RBI and nine stolen bases.
Owings, meanwhile, leads the Green Wave offense with 16 home runs, three triples and a .707 slugging percentage while pacing the Tulane pitching staff with 117 strikeouts. Earlier this season, Owings was named 2005 Conference USA Player of the Year and first-team All C-USA as the utility athlete.
At the plate, Owings ranks second on the team with 54 RBI and a .448 on-base percentage, and fourth with 15 doubles and 128 total bases. From the mound, he is 9-4 with a 3.63 ERA to go along with a .235 opponent batting average and just 17 walks in 106.2 innings of work.
The coaching honor is the third of the season for Jones, who was named C-USA Coach of the Year last Tuesday and C-USA Coach of the Decade on May 23. In 2005, Jones led the Green Wave to its second 50-win season in school history, the C-USA regular-season title and a share of the 2005 C-USA Tournament crown.
Tulane was the preseason No. 1 according to Baseball America, and after ranking at or near the top all season long, the Green Wave enter this weekend's NCAA Regional as the top-ranked team in all four national polls and claimed the No. 1 National Seed for postseason play.
The Tulane trio are joined on the team by fellow Conference USA members Lance Broadway (RHP) of TCU and Brad Willcutt (C/INF) of Southern Miss, as well as state standout Ryan Patterson (OF) of LSU.
Bogusevic, Owings and Jones return to action on Friday, June 3, when Tulane plays host to the 2005 NCAA New Orleans Regional at Turchin Stadium. The Green Wave open postseason play vs. fourth-seeded Southern at 2:30 p.m., while second-seeded Alabama battles third-seeded Louisiana-Lafayette at 6:30 p.m. The winner of the New Orleans Regional advances to the Super Regional where it will play a three-game series vs. the winner of the Baton Rouge Regional (LSU, Rice, Northwestern State and Marist) for the right to advance to the College World Series.
