Brubaker heads up all-conference selections

The Saddleback baseball team had five players named to the All-Orange Empire Conference Team on Monday at the post-season coaches meeting.  Tanner Brubaker was named Pitcher-of-the-Year while four others made the first team.

Saddleback enters the playoffs this Friday when they host East Los Angeles College in a three-game series in the opening round of the Southern California Regional Playoffs.  The Gauchos will be well-represented on the field with all-conference selections.  Along with Brubaker, Daniel Harris, Brett Auerbach, Willie Lajoie and Mike Jarvis were all named to the OEC First Team on Monday.

Brubaker was a rock throughout the season, finishing 11-2 overall with a 1.17 ERA.  He pitched 58.1 innings during conference play and was 6-1 with a 1.85 ERA.  Brubaker had three complete games against Orange Empire Conference foes, striking out 39 batters while walking only six.  The sophomore from San Clemente High School gave a verbal commitment to UC Irvine before the season began and has lived up to expectations, pitching six-or-more innings in all 13 starts this season and giving up 1-or-less earned-runs in 10 of them.

Auerbach is a first team selection for the second straight season after leading the team in nearly every offensive category.  Auerbach led the team in batting average (.380), on-base percentage (.492), stolen bases (24), walks (31), doubles (15), hits (57), runs (45), extra-base hits (18) and total bases (79).  In addition, he threw out 15-of-27 trying to steal a base and committed just four errors while playing in all 40 games behind the plate.  The Tesoro High School product gave a verbal commitment to the University of Alabama before the season started and currently ranks in the top-20 in Saddleback history in six different offensive categories. 

Harris was named to the first team after finishing the season 3-1 with a 2.12 ERA.  After missing some of the beginning of the season with bumps and bruises, Harris joined the starting rotation full-time in the early stages of conference play and was solid throughout the remainder of the year.  He pitched 6-or-more innings in each of his last five starts and only once all season gave up more than two earned-runs in a game.  Harris graduated from Capistrano Valley High School and joined the Gaucho program after spending some time at San Jose State University.

Jarvis earned first team recognition after a tremendous run during conference play.  After starting the season slowly offensively, he finished strong when it counted by putting up big numbers against his OEC foes.  Jarvis finished with a .337 average in conference play, leading the team in triples (2) while tying for the team lead in both stolen bases (8) and runs-scored (19).  He was second on the team in home runs in OEC play (2) while finishing third in hits (29).  The sophomore from Clairemont High School has a career batting average of .303 for the Gauchos in 68 games.

The lone freshman to make the first team was Lajoie, the Beckman High School graduate who spend some time at the University of Northern Colorado before transferring into the program.  Lajoie was a pillar of consistency throughout the season, playing in 39 games and collecting at least one hit in 32 games.  Lajoie led the team in at-bats (151) and RBI (44) while finishing second in on-base percentage (.435), batting average (.358), home runs (4), hits (54) and total bases (78).   In addition, Lajoie led the team in fielding percentage at first base (.995), committing just two errors all season.  In conference play he was an absolute beast, leading the team in batting average (.365), on-base percentage (.446), slugging percentage (.541), RBI (26), doubles (7), hits (31) and total bases (46) while playing in all 21 games. 

Saddleback (28-12) earned the 3-seed for the upcoming playoffs and will play host to East Los Angeles College (23-17) on Friday and Saturday in a best-of-three series.  The Gauchos will open the series at 6:00 PM on Friday night, followed by game two on Saturday at 2:00 PM.  Game three, if necessary, would start 30 minutes after the completion of game two.