ROCKINGHAM — The postseason accolades continue to roll in for Ethan Baucom, who was named to the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) All-American Team early Wednesday afternoon.
It was the third honor Baucom, a native of Rockingham who’s a rising senior at UNC-Pembroke, received this month.
He was selected Peach Belt Conference Player of the Year on May 9, which caught him by surprise, and was then named to the Division 2 Conference Commissioners Association (D2CCA) All-Southeast Region squad a week later.
Baucom’s most-recent honor makes him the 13th UNCP baseball player in the last 12 seasons to earn All-American recognition and it marks the eighth time in that same time frame the Braves have had at least one player decorated with the laurel from at least one of the three national organizations, according to UNCPbraves.com.
And the accolades are well deserved.
The former Raider recently wrapped up a junior season in which he recorded 71 RBI and 20 home runs on 60 hits — with a .658 slugging percentage and a .306 batting average — in 48 starts. His RBI numbers did lead the NCAA Division II rankings at the beginning of May but is now tied for fourth-most. His 20 homers also sit in a two-way tie at the No. 4 spot.
“The biggest thing to me was my approach. Coming to the plate with a plan of what to do. Instead of swinging at what the pitchers want me to swing at, I was swinging at what I wanted to and laying off everything else,” Baucom said earlier this month. “I’m always in the weight room. I work out every day of the week. And I think that played a big part as well.”
Baucom will be looking to better his game before his final season at Pembroke, and maybe impress some scouts in the process, when he suits up for the Savannah Bananas (Ga.) in the Coastal Plains League this summer.