May 20, 2008
Complete 2008 All-OVC Baseball Teams 
PADUCAH, Ky. - Four members of the Southeast Missouri State University Redhawks baseball team were honored Tuesday at the annual Ohio Valley Conference Awards Banquet held on the eve of the 2008 OVC Baseball Tournament, which will be held at Brooks Stadium in Paducah. Sophomore catcher Jim Klocke, redshirt junior first baseman Matt Wagner and junior outfielder Tyrell Cummings each earned All-OVC First Team accolades, while freshman third baseman Trenton Moses was named to the All-Freshman Team.
The first and second team All-OVC honors are voted on by league head coaches and sports information directors and were awarded along with conference Player, Pitcher, Freshman and Coach of the Year awards. Southeast Missouri State was one of only two teams with multiple first-team selections. Its three first-team selections were second only to Jacksonville State, the regular season champions, which led the way with five first-team honorees. This marks the first time since Tim Alvarez, Justin Christian and Brian Hopkins earned first-team honors in 2003 that Southeast placed three players on the first-team.
Klocke makes the jump to All-OVC First Team this season after earning OVC Rookie of the Year honors last season. The St. Louis, Mo., native leads all OVC catchers in hitting with a .359 clip overall and a .376 average in league play. He ranks seventh in the conference in both on-base percentage and runs scored, and he leads all Redhawks hitters in batting average and on-base. Klocke, who leads the Redhawks batting .426 with runners in scoring position, has driven in 40 RBIs on the year, while adding six doubles, one triple and six home runs.
Wagner, who narrowly missed conference honors last season, emerged as the top first baseman in the OVC this year. Batting .286 prior to the start of conference play, the former University of Nebraska transfer punished OVC pitching, hitting .396 in league games, which ranks fifth in the conference. He also ranks third in the conference with 30 RBIs in OVC games, and his .615 slugging percentage in OVC games is higher than any other first baseman. A native of Wahoo, Neb., Wagner has not committed an error in conference play, and his 747 career putouts ranks fourth all-time at Southeast after just two seasons.
Cummings, a first-year junior college transfer from Seminole State Junior College, is among the OVC overall leaders in hits, runs, doubles, home runs, RBIs, total bases and slugging percentage. He leads the conference with 1.19 RBIs per game, and the right-handed slugger currently ranks seventh in the Southeast record books for RBIs in a single season with 56. He also ranks second in the OVC with 12 home runs, becoming the first Southeast player to record double-digit home runs in a season since three players accomplished the feat in 2003. The outfielder from Muskogee, Okla., has reached base safely in 30 consecutive games heading into the OVC Baseball Tournament, and he successfully reached base safely in all but one OVC contest this season.
Moses becomes the sixth player in Southeast history to earn an All-Freshman Team selection since the honor began in 2006. A third baseman from Advance, Mo., he made a splash with an impressive showing in OVC games, posting a .304 average with three doubles, four home runs and 17 RBIs in league play. He started 35 of the team's 47 games at third base and hit .280 on the season. His current six-game hitting streak is his longest of the season as the Redhawks advance to the OVC Baseball Tournament.
Jacksonville State senior outfielder Clay Whittemore and Samford shortstop Michael Marseco split the votes and were each awarded the OVC's highest honor as OVC Player of the Year. Eastern Kentucky left-handed pitcher Christian Friedrich was named the OVC Pitcher of the Year while Jacksonville State freshman outfielder Todd Cunningham was named Rookie of the Year, and JSU's Jim Case took home Coach of the Year honors.
Whittemore and Marseco became the first people to share the Player of the Year award since Austin Peay's Randy McDermott and Middle Tennessee's Gary Myers did so 16 years ago. Whittemore, who also won the 2007 OVC Player of the Year honor during his All-American junior campaign, became only the second player to win multiple awards, equaling the feat achieved by Murray State's George Dugan, who won three awards from 1963-65. Marseco became the first Samford Bulldog to win the honor.
