June 12, 2015
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - After helping guide Missouri State to a school-record 49-win season and an NCAA Regional championship, senior infielder Dylan Becker and junior pitcher Matt Hall took home top honors Friday when the Bears unveiled their team award-winners for the 2015 season. Becker was chosen as the Bears' A.E. "Ted" Willis Most Valuable Player, while Hall claimed the Dave Dickensheet Outstanding Pitcher Award and Jake Burger was selected Danny Cook Rookie of the Year in a vote of their MSU teammates.
A four-year letterwinner for the Bears, Becker was named an MVC Scholar-Athlete for the third consecutive season after helping anchor Missouri State's infield and filling the role of offensive catalyst from the leadoff spot throughout MSU's record-setting 2015 campaign. After starting all 57 games at third base in 2014, Becker filled a need at second base this spring after Eric Cheray went down with an injury. The Leawood, Kan., product registered a .976 fielding percentage to help the Bears establish a program record for team fielding, in addition to posting career-best numbers in nearly every offensive category, including hitting .309 and logging a .455 on-base percentage that ranked fourth overall in the Valley.
An honorable mention All-MVC choice and MVC Championship All-Tournament Team selection, Becker set a Bears single-season record with 55 walks this season to rank third in all of Division I baseball and concluded his career third on MSU's all-time walks list (124). Becker was named Missouri State's Bill Rowe Male Student-Athlete of the Year in May and earned the MVC President's Council Academic Excellence Award as well.
Hall, who as selected by Detroit in the sixth round of the 2015 Major League Baseball Draft on Tuesday, shattered both the Bears' and Missouri Valley Conference's single-season records for strikeouts with an NCAA Division I-best 171 K's en route to earning consensus All-America honors this spring. The junior from Lee's Summit, Mo., also matched a Missouri State record with 12 victories, while his 2.02 ERA was the best among all Valley starting pitchers. He logged seven double-digit strikeout totals in his 16 starts and led the league with 125.0 innings pitched, which also represents a new MSU single-season high. Hall's 12.31 strikeout-per-9.0 innings pitched rate is not only the top mark in the country, but also the best in school history, while his 275 career strikeouts is third in Missouri State history.
The left-hander, who earned first-team All-MVC, as well as MVC Championship and NCAA Regional all-tournament team honors, turned in a streak of 32.0 consecutive scoreless innings as part of the Bears' school-record 19-game win streak and his 2.66 career earned run average ranks eighth all-time at MSU. He struck out 15 batters in a May 2 win over Wichita State before capping his season with a memorable complete-game one-hitter of Arkansas this past weekend to force a third and deciding game at the Fayetteville Super Regional.
A freshman third baseman from Chesterfield, Mo., Burger became just the third Bear, along with Mark Bailey (1980) and Bob Blakley (1974) in the 52-year history of the program to be named an All-American with his selection as a Louisville Slugger third-teamer by Collegiate Baseball in late May. He wasted little time in establishing himself as one of The Valley's top corner men in his rookie season, totaling a team-high 78 hits--the second-highest total overall in the MVC and the top mark for a Valley freshman--and a Missouri State freshman record 22 doubles, while batting a club-best .342 and leading the Bears with a .518 slugging percentage this spring.
A first-team All-MVC performer and the Valley's Freshman of the Year, Burger led the team with 25 multi-hit games and 10 multi-RBI outings, as well as four home runs and 42 RBIs for the season. He logged two separate 16-game streaks of reaching base safely via a hit, walk or hit by pitch, including a stretch from April 15 through May 14 in which he recorded a hit in all but one contest and batted .403 (27-for-67) with 17 RBIs.
Missouri State's annual team awards are named in honor of three former Bears who made significant contributions to the University's athletics programs. Ted Willis was an MSU football letterman in 1918, and the Bears' team MVP award carries his name through a plaque donated by his widow in memory of his long-standing interest and support of MSU athletics. The Bears' top rookie honor is named for Danny Cook, a standout third baseman for the Bears from 1966 through 1969 who died of leukemia in 1989. Finally, Dave Dickensheet is a Missouri State Athletics Hall of Famer who pitched for the Bears from 1979 through 1982 before succumbing to cancer in 1991.
The Bears (49-12) concluded their landmark 2015 campaign with their second NCAA Super Regional appearance last weekend against Arkansas after earning the program's first national seed (No. 8) in the NCAA Tournament and sweeping the Springfield Regional field. MSU also claimed both the MVC regular-season and tournament titles for the first time in the same season, completing the league's regular season with an 18-3 mark--the best for any Valley champion since 2004--and ascended to an all-time best national ranking of No. 6 in Baseball America's College Top 25 poll thanks to a school-record 19-game win streak.
