Five Mainers Recognized with End-Of-Season Awards
August 18, 2023 - New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL)
Sanford Mainers News Release
SANFORD, Maine - Just about two weeks removed from the final out of its 2023 season, the New England Collegiate Baseball League has finalized its awards honorees.
The Sanford Mainers, who finished with their most successful season since 2018 with a 24-19 regular season record, had five different players honored throughout the awards announcements, including Logan Poteet (Vanderbilt), Devan Bade (Binghamton), Seamus Barrett (Loyola Marymount), Justin Honeycutt (UNC Asheville) and Cal Hewett (Vanderbilt).
Poteet was the big winner for not only the green and gold but for the league as a whole as the Mainers backstop was honored as the Rick Ligi Most Valuable Player, the NECBL Batting Champion and an All-NECBL First Team member.
Heading into his second year with the Commodores, the Tennessee native had a league-high .347 batting average to go along with three home runs and a share of the Mainers' lead of 25 RBIs this summer. A lot of that damage was done in the month of July when he .398 and earned Week 6 Player of the Week during an 11-game hitting streak in which he hit .500 (19-38) with two home runs and 12 RBIs.
Poteet found himself representing Sanford at the 2023 NECBL All-Star Game, presented by Metro Credit Union, alongside side Bade, who received the Chris Ashmos 10th Player Award.
The award is given yearly to a player who made an impact for his team outside of the starting nine whether it be pitching, fielding or batting, and the Bearcat infielder did just that in his second year with the Moose.
Bade spent time at second base, third base and shortstop throughout the season, but it did not matter where he was as he was always giving his team a chance to win. Though not always in the most conventional manners like his walk-off infield single turned Little League home run, the rising junior found his way on base often en route to a .363 on-base percentage fueled by a .279 batting average in addition to three home runs and share of the team lead in RBIs with Poteet.
Fellow returning member of the green and gold, Hewett, earned an honorable mention on the All-NECBL teams. Hewett batted .282 in the regular season with a trio of home runs and 13 RBIs. His .414 on-base percentage, which was aided by 13 walks and 11 hit-by-pitches, proved to be his strong suit as once he reached first, he was nearly a sure thing to keep going as his 27 stolen bases in just 30 attempts paced the league.
Though Poteet, Bade and Hewett all do the damage at the plate, the story of the 2023 Mainers is not told without their lights-out starting pitching, and Barrett and Honeycutt were given honorable mentions for their efforts that led their starting rotation to a 2.02 combined ERA.
Barrett started his season in a big way with seven-shutout innings against the Ocean State Waves and although his next two starts saw him get roughed up, the 6-foot-7 righty found his groove on his way to a 3-2 record, 3.23 ERA and 58 strikeouts in 47.1 innings pitched. That strikeout number, which fell one short of tying the Mainers' all-time single-season record, was helped by back-to-back double-digit performances against two of the league's best offensives in the Vermont Mountaineers and Newport Gulls.
As for Honeycutt, he went 1-1 with a 1.39 ERA and 27 strikeouts throughout 38.2 innings of work over eight starts, including the Opening Day nod. That record was not indicative of the winning ways the North Carolina native brought to the table time and time again for the Mainers, who went 7-1 in games he started in the regular season, as he had had five starts in which he did not yield an earned run. Four of those five starts came to start his season with the other being a seven-inning gem against Upper Valley that pulled the Mainers closer to the top of the division.
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New England Collegiate Baseball League Stories from August 18, 2023
- Five Mainers Recognized with End-Of-Season Awards - Sanford Mainers
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