June 16, 2004
BEAUMONT - Seniors Jordan Foster and Kyle Stutes were named to the 2004 American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA)/Rawlings all-South Central Region first team and senior John Allen earned second team honors on Wednesday, in voting the by the regions head coaches.
The South Central Region is comprised of 33 schools. Among the conferences represented are the Sun Belt, Southland, Southwestern Athletic, Ohio Valley, Mid-Continent, Conference USA and the Western Athletic. The region also includes independent programs - Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Texas-Pan American. All first team members now become eligible for all-America status, which will be announced later this week at the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.
Foster, who was also a first team selection a year ago, hit .363 with 51 runs scored, 78 hits, 13 doubles, nine home runs and 44 runs batted in. He also led the team in slugging percentage (.549) and on-base percentage (.481).
A senior from Arlington, Foster finished his career as Lamar's all-time leader in batting average (.374), doubles (63) and hits (256), and ranks third all-time in RBI (165) and second in total bases (380). He was drafted in the 24th round of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft by the Detroit Tigers.
The 2004 Southland Conference pitcher of the year, Stutes posted a 10-2 record with a 2.49 ERA and three saves in his final season at Lamar. He struck out 84 and walked 21 in 90.1 innings pitched and limited opponents to a .225 batting average. In SLC play, Stutes recorded a 5-1 record with three complete games and a 1.87 ERA. He pitched 62.2 innings during league action and struck out 50, while allowing only 16 hits.
Stutes, who was named third team all-America by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) and honorable mention all-America by CollegeBaseballInsider.com on Tuesday, finished his career ranked second all-time in school history in games pitched (86) and tied for fifth in strikeouts (206). He was selected in the 22nd round of the MLB Draft by the San Diego Padres.
Allen, who was a first team selection at designated hitter last year, hit .303 with 28 runs scored, 61 hits, 20 doubles, six home runs and 38 RBI. He was second on the team with a .502 slugging percentage and his 20 doubles tied for the sixth-best single-season total in school history.
Position players joining Foster on the first team were Kyle Valverde (catcher) of New Orleans, Blake Adkison (first base) of Centenary, Josh Touchstone (second base) of South Alabama, Dallas Morris (third base) of UL-Lafayette, Ryan Crew (shortstop) of Texas-San Antonio, Rhett Burras (DH) of UL-Lafayette, Adam Ling (outfield) of USA, Matt Gunning (outfield) of Western Kentucky and Hunter Pence (outfield) of Texas-Arlington. P.J. Walters of USA and Michael Gardner of UTA joined Stutes as starting pitchers and Michael Snapp of UTA was the relief pitcher.
