BEAUMONT – Senior right-hander Will Hibbs continued a six-year tradition for the Lamar University baseball team when his name was announced as a 19^th-round selection of the Philadelphia Phillies, and Stijn van der Meer joined him in the 34^th round as a selection of the Houston Astros, Saturday afternoon as a part of the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft.
 
In each of the last six seasons, there has been at least one pitcher picked from the Cardinals' program, and during that span seven total pitchers have been chosen. Hibbs and van der Meer make 11 Big Red selections in the last six years.
 
Hibbs', who finished the 2016 season with a 9-3 record and 3.27 earned run average, 19^th-round selection (557 overall) was the highest taken out of Lamar since Jonathan Dziedzic – who is in AAA with the Kansas City Royals – was selected in the 13^th round of the 2013 draft.
 
The Friendswood native was the fourth player chosen in the Southland Conference behind Jameson Fisher (4^th, Southeastern Louisiana), Chris Falwell (16^th, Texas A&M – Corpus Christi) and Nick Heath (16^th, Northwestern State). Falwell was the only pitcher picked from the league in front of Hibbs.
 
The first-team All-Southland Conference selection was twice selected as a player of the week, once by the Southland Conference for a complete-game shutout over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, and again as a Louisville Slugger National Player of the Week for a 14-strikeout game over McNeese State.
 
The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association chose him as the April Pitcher of the Month for his perfect 5-0 record and a 1.75 earned run average.  His five wins were a part of a seven wins in seven games streak he had in the middle of the season.
 
He finished his career at Lamar with a 17-7 career record and was one shy of 200 career strikeouts. He tossed more than 226 innings in 59 games during his career.
 
His final season count was 15 starts and 96.1 innings pitched, both team leads. He racked up 97 strikeouts and only 29 walks.
 
Not only did he succeed on the field, but did so in the classroom as well. He was selected as the winner of the Southland Conference's prestigious McDonald Award, given to the league's top academic graduates. It is annually presented to the graduating male and female letterwinner with the highest cumulative grade point average during their enrollment at the institution.
 
Hibbs has also been the SLC Student-Athlete Advisory Committee President as well as a national representative for the committee.
 
Van der Meer finished his career with a .363 batting average over a two-year span, which ranks third all-time at Lamar. He ended his final campaign with a .376 batting average in 54 games played. He had 44 runs on the year with 20 more runs batted in. His strikeout-walk ratio was staggering with only 15 strikeouts to 38 walks.
 
He led the team with 80 hits, and his on-base percentage (.471) and batting average ranked second in the Southland Conference.
 
 
The Rosmalen, Netherlands native was a first-team All-Southland Conference selection, and was a two-time standout selection after being chosen on the second team in 2015. He played in every contest that he was on the roster in his two years, and was the leadoff hitter for the entire 2016 campaign.
 
He reeled off a 24-game hit streak, second all-time at LU, and a 32-game reached base streak, school record. While on the hit streak, he hit for a .429 average with 22 runs scored and 13 RBI. He was held hitless in only six games this season, and was kept off base in only three.