STANDISH, ME – The 2012 D3baseball.com All-Region teams have been announced and three Saint Joseph's College players have earned All-New England recognition.
Junior pitcher Chad Rafferty (Keene, N.H.) has collected New England Region Pitcher of the Year and First Team honors while freshman catcher Nic Lops (South Portland, Maine/Cheverus) and sophomore utility man Lincoln Sanborn (Standish, Maine) have claimed Third Team accolades.
In 2012, Rafferty recorded one of the finest seasons ever posted by a pitcher at Saint Joseph's, posting a perfect 10-0 record with a 1.71 ERA and 74 strikeouts – against just 20 walks – in 68.1 innings. Opponents hit just .213 (53-249) off the junior righthander this spring.
Rafferty, the 2012 GNAC Pitcher of the Year and First Team All-NEIBA selection, owns an astounding 21-1 career record and is currently tied for second with Brent Dan '01 on the SJC pitching victories list. With a 1.87 ERA last spring, he is the only pitcher in program history to post a pair of sub-2.00 ERA's and needs just three wins to surpass Richard Flaherty '86 as the Monks' career victories leader.
With one collegiate campaign remaining, Rafferty also ranks fourth in career ERA (2.83), fifth in WHIP (1.21) and H/9 (7.93), sixth in strikeouts (182), seventh in K/9 (9.38), and ninth in innings pitched (174.2).
Lops, the 2012 GNAC Rookie of the Year and GNAC Tournament Most Valuable Player, led the Monks in batting average (.389, 51-131) and tallied 22 runs, five doubles, and 28 RBI as a first-year player. He also paced the Royal Blue with 15 multiple-hit games and recorded a 12-game hitting streak during the season.
Sanborn, a 2012 Second Team All-GNAC selection as both a pitcher and a utility player, went 7-0 with a 2.87 ERA and 60 strikeouts – against only 12 walks – in 53.1 innings on the mound and hit .289 (25-86) with 20 runs, five doubles and 14 RBI with the bat in his first season at Saint Joseph's.
St. Joe's went 39-7 overall and 14-2 in Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) play this season under the watch of 20th-year Head Coach Will Sanborn '86 (542-295-5, .648). In 2012, the Monks captured a conference crown for the seventh time in the last eight seasons and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the sixth time in seven years with the GNAC's automatic qualifier.
As the #2 seed in the 2012 NCAA DIII New England Regional Tournament, St. Joe's defeated #7 Bowdoin College and #4 Keene State College but bowed out of the double-elimination tourney with losses to #3 Trinity College and #5 Western New England University.
