BUFFALO, N.Y.- Canisius College baseball player Ryan Stekl was the latest to win a national award for the Golden Griffins as he was named to the 2015 National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Division I Freshman All-American Team on Monday afternoon. Stekl is one of 34 players to be honored with the accolade as he notched second-team honors.
Stekl finished his freshman campaign with 63 games played with 61 starts to go along with a line of a .341 batting average, 69 hits, 38 RBI, 33 runs in 236 at bats. The Lancaster, N.Y., native wrapped up the season ranked fourth in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference ranked fourth in batting average and hits, and seventh in RBI.
Stekl is just the fifth player in Canisius history to be named a Freshman All-American and first to be named to the NCBWA first-year list since Shane Davis in 2008. Stekl is the only MAAC player to be featured on the list this year.
The first-year infielder started the year strong with back-to-back MAAC weekly awards, earning the player of the week award on Feb. 17 and then followed it up with a rookie of the week nod on Feb. 24.
Canisius is coming off a year where the squad tallied its second conference championship in the program’s history and second in three years. The Griffs punched its ticket to Springfield Regional in the NCAA tournament but dropped contests against No. 8 Missouri State and Oregon to be ousted from bracket. The squad finished the year with 34 wins and played the most contests of any team in Division I baseball entering the tournament with 62.