Baseball’s Hunter Williams Named American Athletic Conference Co-Player of the Year

CLEARWATER, Fla. – Tulane baseball senior first baseman Hunter Williams was named the American Athletic Conference Co-Player of the Year and a unanimous first-team selection, and redshirt junior outfielder Grant Brown was selected to the second team in a vote by the league's coaches, the conference office announced Monday.

This is the first all-conference selection for both Williams and Brown.

Williams has hit .357 with 84 hits, 40 RBI, 43 runs scored, 18 doubles, 10 home runs and 134 total bases, compiling a .570 slugging percentage and a .406 on-base percentage. He leads the conference in hits, and ranks second in batting average, doubles and total bases, and in the top-10 in slugging percentage, runs scored and home runs. In 24 conference games, he hit .346 with 36 hits, 18 RBI, 22 runs, five homers, five doubles, and fielded at a .992 clip.

The West Monroe, La., native recorded multiple hits in 28 games and multiple RBI 10 times. He reached base safely in 51 of 56 contests this season, and hit safely in 14 straight games from April 2 through April 23. In addition to his on-field prowess, Williams graduated with full honors from Tulane University with a 4.0 cumulative grade-point average in neuroscience, and was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District 6 Team.

Brown led the Green Wave in conference play with a .383 batting average, and compiled 23 hits, 18 RBI, 12 runs, five home runs and five doubles. He tallied 43 total bases, a .717 slugging percentage and a .457 on-base percentage in 17 games against league competition. Brown hit .322 during the regular season, ranking second on the team. He totaled 30 RBI, seven homers, eight doubles, 19 walks, scored 19 runs and slugged .579 while posting a .410 on-base percentage in 40 games with 32 starts.

The center fielder from Biloxi, Miss., is currently on a 17-game hitting streak, and has reached base in 20 consecutive contests. He recorded 11 multiple hit games and eight multiple RBI games. He battled through injuries that held him out of games early in the season, and rebounded to lead the Wave in hitting since becoming a fixture in the lineup. He hit .397 with 21 RBI, six homers and six doubles, scoring 16 runs in 20 games during that span, and raised his batting average 114 points. Brown recently received his degree from Tulane University in public health.

Williams is the eighth Tulane player to earn conference Player of the Year honors, and the first since Mark Hamilton was Conference USA Player of the Year in 2006.

The fifth-seeded Green Wave opens the 2017 American Athletic Conference Championship against fourth-seeded USF at 2:30 p.m. CT Tuesday at Spectrum Field in Clearwater, Fla. The game will be televised by CBS Sports Network, and broadcast on 88.3 FM WRBH and TuneIn Radio.

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Baseball’s Hunter Williams Named American Athletic Conference Co-Player of the Year

Players Mentioned

Grant Brown

Hunter Williams

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