Four Mariners Earn D3baseball.com All-New England Honors
[D3baseball.com All-New England Teams]
NEW LONDON, Conn. – Four members of the Mitchell College baseball team were among the 45 players who received D3baseball.com All-New England honors on Tuesday.
Senior Jakari Pellegrini and juniors Dougie DelaCruz and Hunter Yaworski represented the Mariners on the first team, which was made up of 14 selections from eight different institutions. Senior Roland Thivierge anded a spot on the second team. Yaworski was a first-time selection while the rest earned all-region honors for a second time in their careers.
Mitchell tied with Eastern Connecticut State University for the most first-team selections. Pellegrini, DelaCruz and Yaworski are the first Mitchell trio to earn D3baseball.com all-region first team status in the same season. The Mariners now boast 19 all-region selections in the past eight years under head coach Travis Beausoleil.
The group led the Mariners to a 26-9 record this season that included a 14-2 mark in New England Collegiate Conference play. Mitchell won its seventh NECC title and competed in the NCAA DIII regionals for the sixth time, picking up its fourth postseason win since 2014.
Pellegrini, who grabbed the first-team utility spot, made major contributions in his final season. On the mound he posted a 6-3 record with 50 strikeouts over 47.1 innings, finishing the year with a 4.18 ERA. The all-conference first team pick also started 18 games at first base and batted a career-high .429 with five doubles, two homers, 12 RBI and 23 runs scored. He earned all-region first team honors for the first time in his career, having landed a third team spot as a pitcher in 2018.
DelaCruz was one of three outfielders named to the all-region first team. He started and played in all 35 games and batted a career-high .430 with 13 doubles, eight homers, a school-record 58 RBI and a league-high 39 runs scored. In addition to being named NECC Player of the Year for the second time in his career, he was tabbed MVP of the 2021 NECC Championship after leading Mitchell to the title. This season marked his second with all-region accolades, as he was a third team selection as a rookie in 2019.
Yaworski, who also landed an outfield spot on the first team, enjoyed a breakout season in which he played in 28 games and led the NECC with a career-high .457 batting average. The all-conference first team selection also slugged a league-best .864 with nine doubles, eight homers, 39 RBI and 28 runs scored. He was the only Mitchell player with a pair of multi-homer games this season, which included a walk-off blast against Salve Regina University in the regular season finale.
Thivierge capped his four-year career by earning all-region honors for the second time (2019) as a pitcher. The two-time NECC Pitcher of the Year went 7-2 with a 3.60 ERA in his final season on the bump, striking out a career-high 68 batters over 65.0 innings of work. He led the NECC in wins, starts, strikeouts and innings pitched and ranked third in ERA. Most recently he was named one of six finalists for the NECC Male Student-Athlete of the Year award.
The 2021 season marks the ninth year that D3baseball.com has named all-region teams, with 940 players nominated by sports information directors from around the country. The ballot was then made available to D3basebll.com staff and contributors from which three teams in each region were determined.
