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NECBL New England Collegiate Baseball League

Golden, Young Named 2018 NECBL Fan Vote Winners

July 27, 2018 - New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL) News Release


NORTH ADAMS, Mass. - After accumulating the most votes in their respective divisions over the course of a hotly contested four-day period, Keene shortstop Mitchell Golden (Georgia Southern) and New Bedford right-handed pitcher Michael Young (Stonehill) have been named the winners of the 2018 New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL) All-Star Game Fan Vote, the league announced Friday morning.

Golden, a rising junior at Georgia Southern, and Young, a rising senior at Stonehill College, will both lace up for this Sunday's NECBL All-Star Game, which will be hosted by the Valley Blue Sox at MacKenzie Stadium, with festivities beginning at approximately 3 p.m. For more information on the NECBL All-Star Game, including an updates itinerary, head to ASG18.NECBL.com!

Now in its fourth year, the NECBL Fan Vote gave the league's innumerous fans a chance for their voices to be heard; after the initial 29-player rosters were unveiled last Sunday for both the North and South Divisions, each team nominated one of their players not selected to the All-Star Game roster or Skills Competition/Home Run Derby, and the recipient of the most votes from each division would be added to Sunday's roster.

The voting opened on Monday at midnight and ended Thursday night at midnight, giving fans exactly four days to cast their votes. Keene claimed its first Fan Vote victory with a record turnout by its fan base, reeling in nearly 4,000 votes over that period to win the contest by more than 2,000 votes. New Bedford, meanwhile, earned its second straight Fan Vote victory after doing so last year; the Bay Sox fan base generated over 750 votes, nearly 300 more than the next-closest South Division team.

Winnipesaukee (2) and Vermont (1) have won the other Fan Vote contests over the past four years.

A Marietta, Georgia, native, Golden has been a mainstay in the infield for the Swamp Bats this summer and boasts some solid numbers both at the plate and defensively. He is batting .316 entering Friday with 26 runs, seven doubles, a homer and nine RBIs. A spark plug in the Swamp Bat lineup, he boasts a .438 on-base percentage and an .840 OPS; he is also 12-of-16 on the base paths while owning a .957 fielding percentage. He played in and started 54 games at third base and shortstop for Georgia Southern this past spring, hitting .254/.338/.353 as a sophomore.

A Mashpee, Massachusetts, native, Young has enjoyed a strong summer on the mound for the Bay Sox as he hones his craft not far from both his hometown and his college (Stonehill). In 13 appearances (3 starts), the righty has logged 24-2/3 innings with 30 strikeouts and only 13 walks. His WHIP is 1.50 for the summer. The local product had a fine return to the diamond this past spring with Stonehill after missing all of the 2016-17 season due to injury; he went 26-1/3 innings with 29 strikeouts and 15 walks while averaging 9.91 strikeouts per nine innings.

The NECBL congratulates Golden and Young, as well as the Keene and New Bedford organizations, and thanks the thousands of fans who participated in this year's All-Star Game Fan Vote!

The New England Collegiate Baseball League is a wooden bat college summer league that fields teams in all six New England states. Partially funded by Major League Baseball, the NECBL started play in 1994 and is enjoying its 25th-year anniversary season this summer. The New England League has sent nearly 150 alumni to the Major Leagues and has had close to 100 alumni taken in the MLB Draft in each of the last 10 seasons.



New England Collegiate Baseball League Stories from July 27, 2018


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