Coastal Carolina senior catcher Tucker Frawley, who owns a cumulative GPA of 3.906 in physics, was named to the Capital One Academic All-District 4 team, as voted up on by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
This marks the second consecutive year Frawley (Lexington, S.C.) has been voted Academic All-District 4, which includes NCAA Division I schools in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Puerto Rico. Frawley will now be eligible for the Capital One Academic All-America team.
Frawley, one of three team captains, has earned a perfect 4.0 seven times in his academic career and was named Academic All-Big South last season.
In addition to his outstanding work in the classroom, Frawley is on the Johnny Bench Award Watch List for his outstanding effort on the field as well. After batting .234 last season, Frawley is third on the team in 2012 with a .320 batting average, hitting seven doubles and a home run with 19 runs scored and 22 RBI. He also owns a .415 on-base percentage as he has reached base safely (hit/walk/hit by pitch) in 37 of 42 games this season. (Note: In three of the five games in which he did not reach base, he had only one bat per game as he was given a rest during the game.)
Amazingly, he has been able to keep up his offensive numbers while being an Iron Man behind the plate.
Frawley has caught 369.2 of CCU’s 406.2 innings (90.9 percent) this season). Namely, he caught 55 of the Chants’ record-setting 64 innings from March 7-11 and served as the DH in the innings he did not catch. First, he caught both games of a mixed doubleheader Wednesday for 18 innings. He then caught all 11 innings in Friday’s game versus Toledo. On Saturday in another mixed doubleheader, Frawley caught 14 of CCU’s 23 innings (nine versus Ohio State and the final five of a 12-innings game versus Marist, serving as DH the first nine). He ended the weekend by catching all 12 innings in a win over Ohio State, getting the game-winning hit.
Frawley has been forced to play so many innings as he serves two critical roles on the team defensively. First, he serves as a coach on the field, working with Coastal’s young pitching staff (five freshmen, one sophomore, two junior college transfers and three juniors). Despite the youth, Coastal is having one of its best season’s pitching, leading the NCAA in ERA (2.42) and ranking sixth in the NCAA in fewest hits allowed per nine innings (7.31).
Second, he is also able to help the pitchers control the opponents’ running game. Frawley threw out one runner (at Clemson) this past week and he has now thrown out seven of his last eight, 12 of his last 18, and 19 of 34 (55.8 percent) this season. In addition, Frawley has picked off seven base runners this season – five at first, one at second and one at third. Dating back to last season (at Clemson ironically), Frawley has thrown out 30 of his last 56 (53.6 percent).
Coastal Carolina will host Campbell this weekend in a three-game series, playing a Saturday doubleheader and single game Sunday. First pitch is set for 2 pm both days.
- Photo courtesy of CCU Athletics
