by Cassie Mattia
Loveland, Ohio – Former Loveland High School Baseball and Football stand-out, Luke Waddell has again been awarded quite the preseason honor!
On Monday afternoon D1Baseball announced Waddell, Georgia Tech Baseball’s shortstop, and captain would be apart of their Pre-season All-American Second-Team. Last season Waddell earned the Academic All-American honor and was a semifinalist for Shortstop of the Year in 2019.
During the 2020 Georgia Tech Baseball season Waddell had a .300 batting average over the course of 16 games and in 2019 averaged a .419 on-base percentage. For both seasons Waddell averaged a .432 on-base percentage, a 10:1 at-bat to strikeout ratio, and the highest on-base streak on the team (39 games).
Waddell is clearly a highly decorated collegiate student-athlete but just how does one get selected to D1Baseball’s All-American Pre-season Team?
According to D1Baseball’s website, “D1Baseball’s editors and national writers select the preseason All-America teams with one guiding principle in mind: to identify the best and most valuable college baseball players for the 2021 season. Past performance and future potential factor into the deliberations, but the goal is neither to identify the best future major leaguers nor to reward the players who have put up the gaudiest numbers in past seasons (particularly since the level of competition varies significantly from one conference to another). The objective is to select the players who would provide the most value for a team that wanted to win the College World Series in 2021 — the players who are best equipped to perform against elite college competition this spring.”
To see D1Baseball’s entire All-American Pre-season Second-team click the following link: https://d1baseball.com/season-preview/2021-d1baseball-second-team-preseason-all-americans/.
After Georgia Tech Baseball’s 2020 season being shortened because of COVID-19, the Yellowjackets are more than ready to grab another Coastal Division Championship! The Yellowjackets have several 2020 Freshman All-Americans returning as well as several top-performing upperclassmen. The expectations for GT is high as they’re currently on 4 National Pre-Season Top-25 lists. D1Baseball ranked the Yellowjackets 15th, College Baseball Nation also ranked the team 15th, Perfect Game ranked them 19th, and Baseball America ranked GT 22nd.
Congratulations Luke Waddell on all your outstanding collegiate accomplishments! We can’t wait to see you and the Yellowjackets succeed this year!
Looking for more local sports news and updates? Stay tuned to the Sports 411 With Me, Cassie Mattia!
