Full D1Baseball All-American Teams
THE FLATS – Georgia Tech standouts Kevin Parada (Pasadena, Calif./Loyola) and Chandler Simpson (Atlanta, Ga./St. Pius X (UAB)) continue to be lauded for their accomplishments, most recently being named D1Baseball All-Americans.
Parada becomes a unanimous first-team all-American, already earning the recognition from Collegiate Baseball, Perfect Game, Baseball America, NCBWA, ABCA/Rawlings. Simpson earns his third all-America honor, having received ABCA/Rawlings and Perfect Game selections already. The Yellow Jackets were one of 11 players from the Atlantic Coast Conference to be named to the three teams and the only ACC teammates to be named to the first two teams together.
Parada had an excellent sophomore campaign in which he was named first-team all-ACC and all-Region, a finalist for the Buster Posey Award, Golden Spikes Award and Dick Howser Trophy, and earned National Player of the Week honors three times.
The Pasadena, Calif. native ranked among the nation’s best all year, finishing the regular season ranking sixth with a school-record 26 home runs, second in total bases (174), third in RBI (85), fifth in runs (74) and 35th in hits (85). In the Atlantic Coast Conference, Parada led in runs and RBI, ranked third in home runs, fourth in hits and was the fourth-toughest hitter to strikeout in the league.
The nation’s batting average leader, Simpson hit a blistering .433, becoming the first Yellow Jacket to hit .400 since Mark Teixeira in 2000 and just a thousandth of a percentage point shy of tying Jay Payton’s school record of .434 (min. 200 at-bats) in 1994. Simpson also led the country in hits per game at 1.87 per contest.
Renowned for his speed and his eye at the plate, the Atlanta native stole a team-best 27 bases on the year (good for third in the ACC), was the toughest hitter to strikeout in the ACC at 12.7 at-bats per strikeout and led the league with a gaudy .506 on-base percentage (ninth nationally). He also scored 1.36 runs per game, which was good for third in the country.
Alexander-Tharpe Fund
The Alexander-Tharpe Fund is the fundraising arm of Georgia Tech athletics, providing scholarship, operations and facilities support for Georgia Tech’s 400-plus student-athletes. Be a part of developing Georgia Tech’s Everyday Champions and helping the Yellow Jackets compete for championships at the highest levels of college athletics by supporting the Annual Athletic Scholarship Fund, which directly provides scholarships for Georgia Tech student-athletes. To learn more about supporting the Yellow Jackets, visit atfund.org.
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