SPRINGFIELD – Nick Rodriguez was honored as an American Baseball Coaches Association/Rawlings All-America First Team selection Friday. The second baseman is Missouri State’s 13th First Team All-America selection and 48th overall.
Rodriguez put together a record-breaking senior season for the Bears on the way becoming the school’s seventh Joe Carter Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year recipient. The Tampa, Fla., native batted .368 with 22 doubles, 18 home runs and 56 RBIs, collecting 40 extra-base hits to rank fifth on MoState’s single-season list in that category. He slugged .702 with a .444 on-base percentage and 65 runs scored.
Missouri State’s A.E. “Ted Willis” Team MVP for the second consecutive season, Rodriguez put together a school-record 40-game hitting streak from March 9-May 23, tying for the 12th-longest in NCAA Division I history. The streak also included 15 consecutive games with an extra-base hit from March 23-April 18. While no NCAA record exists for extra-base hit streak, the MLB record is 14 games. Lastly, the senior fielded a stellar .976 in nearly 250 chances while starting all 55 games at second base.
Missouri State First-Team All-Americans
Bob Blakley, 1974 (ABCA)
Jake Burger, 2017 (ABCA, Baseball America, NCBWA)
Matt Cepicky, 1999 (Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball, NCBWA)
Ben Carlson, 2008 (ABCA)
Tim Clubb, 2008 (Collegiate Baseball)
Jeremy Eierman, 2017 (D1Baseball, Perfect Game)
Steve Hacker, 1995 (ABCA, Collegiate Baseball, NCBWA)
Matt Hall, 2015 (Collegiate Baseball, D1Baseball)
Bill Helfrecht, 1971 (ABCA)
Nick Petree, 2012 (ABCA, Collegiate Baseball, Baseball America, NCBWA)
Nick Rodriguez, 2025 (ABCA)
Ken Watkins, 1970 (ABCA)
Bryan Young, 2015 (NCBWA)
