Junior Mark McCain Named to Collegiate Baseball / Louisville Slugger's National Players of the Week :: McCain recorded 15 strikeouts in his first collegiate start to defeat Minnesota 3-1 on Saturday, Mar. 15.

	Printer-Friendly Format E-mail this article McCain earned Pacific's first national player of the week honor since 2005.

Junior Mark McCain Named to Collegiate Baseball / Louisville Slugger's National Players of the Week

McCain recorded 15 strikeouts in his first collegiate start to defeat Minnesota 3-1 on Saturday, Mar. 15.

March 17, 2008

Tucson, Ariz. - Junior right-hander Mark McCain (Dallas, Texas) etched his name in Pacific Baseball history on Monday, Mar. 17, earning Collegiate Baseball / Louisville Slugger's National Players of the Week honors.

McCain earned the honor by delivering 15 K's in a complete game 3-1 victory over Minnesota on Saturday, Mar. 15.

McCain retired the first six Minnesota batters he faced, but surrendered back-to-back hits and the first run of the game in the top of the third. Giving up a run, seemed to focus McCain as he struck out the next three Gopher batters to end the third.

After a perfect fourth inning, McCain pitched out of a bases loaded, no outs jam by recording three consecutive strikeouts. McCain got the number nine hitter, Joe Maciej looking for the first out of the inning. Moments later, McCain forced the top two hitters for Minnesota, Matt Nohelty and Jeremy Chlan, to turn around and head back to the bench swinging to end the threat.

Having tallied nine strikeouts through the top of the fifth and went on to notch the most strikeouts for a Tiger since former major leaguer Dan Reichert tallied 20 K's in Pacific's 4-0 win over Washington State on Feb. 14, 1997.

Saturday's performance by McCain was all the more impressive as the junior right-hander had been used exclusively out of the bullpen in his only season with the Tigers. McCain earned the start on Saturday with a strong relief outing Tuesday, where he threw 83 pitches in 4.1 innings.

McCain's victory on Saturday was his first collegiate victory.

McCain is the first Tiger since Justin Baum (La Mesa, Calif.) to earn a National Player of the week honor. Baum picked up the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Pro-LineCap National Player of the Week and was named to Collegiate Baseball / Louisville Slugger's National Players of the Week for the week of May 9-15, 2005. Reichert was also the last Tiger to earn National Player of the Week honors from the mound, doing so in 1997.

McCain and the Tigers return to the diamond on Tuesday, Mar. 18 as Pacific faces Nevada at 2 p.m. in Peccole Park. McCain's next outing is expected to be on Saturday, Mar. 22 when Pacific hosts the Stanford Cardinal at Klein Family Field at 6 p.m.