As you’d expect from the No. 1 team in the country and one that went unbeaten in 10 ACC series, Wake Forest’s baseball team cleaned up in the league’s awards and All-ACC representation.
Rhett Lowder repeated as ACC pitcher of the year and Tom Walter was named coach of the year, the league announced Monday afternoon.
The Deacons put five players on the All-ACC first-team, and two players on each the second- and third-teams. Voting is conducted by the ACC’s 14 head coaches.
Lowder, a junior from Albemarle, N.C., has been better this season than last year, when he became Wake’s first-ever winner of ACC pitcher of the year. The right-hander is 12-0 with a 1.73 ERA and 108 strikeouts. All of those numbers lead the ACC.
He’s coming off a career-high 12 strikeouts in a Thursday win over Virginia Tech and will start one of Wake’s pool play games this week in the ACC tournament, on Thursday against Pittsburgh or Friday night against Notre Dame (he’ll start against whichever of those two wins their matchup on Wednesday).
Lowder is the first pitcher to win the league’s top honor since Virginia’s Danny Hultzen (2010-11).
Walter is the first Wake Forest baseball coach to be named coach of the year since George Greer in 2002. In his 14th season at Wake Forest, Walter has the Deacons entering the postseason at 45-9 overall and holding the No. 1 rank in national polls.
Wake’s other first-team All-ACC picks, along with Lowder, are first baseman Nick Kurtz, second baseman Justin Johnson, and starting pitchers Josh Hartle and Sean Sullivan.
On the second-team are third baseman Brock Wilken and outfielder Tommy Hawke; Deacons relievers Seth Keener and Camden Minacci were selected to the third-team.