Roller Among Lowe's Senior CLASS Award Nominees
February 17, 2010 | Baseball
Feb. 17, 2010
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - East Carolina senior DH/1B Kyle Roller has been selected as one of 30 candidates for the 2010 Lowes' Senior CLASS Award for baseball, presented annually to an NCAA Division I student-athlete in nine sports. Based on criteria focusing on the "Four C's" of classroom, character, community and competition, the award winners will be selected by a national balloting of head baseball coaches, national media and college baseball fans.
Lowe's, an official Corporate Partner of the NCAA, will announce the Senior CLASS AwardTM winner at the NCAA College World Series in June.
An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in SchoolTM, the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.
Roller, a 2009 first-team All-America selection by the America Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) and Ping!Baseball, batted .366 (86-for-256) with 16 home runs and 75 RBI. He ranked among the national leaders in hit by pitches (fourth), RBI (23rd), total bases (79th), home runs (80th) and hits (98th) after earning first-team All-Conference USA and NCAA Greenville Regional All-Tournament honors.
The Rockingham, N.C. native Roller has been tabbed preseason All-America by Collegiate Baseball (first-team), National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) (second-team), Ping!Baseball (second-team), All C-USA (first-team) by the leagues head coaches, while also being selected as the sixth-best player in college baseball by CollegeBaseballBlog.
This year's candidate class includes 12 student-athletes on teams ranked in Collegiate Baseball magazine's preseason top 40 poll and seven players tabbed as preseason All-America by the NCBWA. Twelve of the candidates carry a cumulative grade point average of 3.5 or better, with one recording a perfect 4.0.
The list of candidates will be narrowed to 10 finalists midway through the regular season, and those 10 names will be placed on the official ballot.
"The candidates for the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award in baseball are fulfilling a commitment to their universities and, at the same time, representing those schools in the community," said Tom Lamb, Lowe's senior vice president of marketing. "They have recognized the value of both a college degree and public service while taking advantage of the opportunity to play the game they love."
This marks the fourth year for the baseball division of the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award. The University of Alabama's Emeel Salem was the inaugural winner in 2007, Rice University's Cole St. Clair was the recipient in 2008 and the University of Florida's Brandon McArthur took home the award in 2009.
Baseball 2010 Candidates
Name - Position - School
DJ Belfonte - Outfield - University of Nebraska
Daniel Bibona - Pitcher - UC Irvine
Shane Brown -Outfield - University of Central Florida
Stephen Cardullo - Shortstop - Florida State University
Ian Choy - Outfield/Designated Hitter - Canisius College
Wes Cunningham - First Base - Murray State University
Devon Dageford - Outfield - Louisiana Tech University
Blake Dean - First Base - Louisiana State University
Mike Donato - Outfield - University of Massachusetts
Michael Fabiaschi - Second Base - James Madison University
Jeremy Gould - Pitcher/Utility - Duke University
Clay Jones - First Base - University of Alabama
Jim Klocke - Catcher/Pitcher - Southeast Missouri State University
Cory Kovanda - Second Base - Ohio State Univeristy
Francis Larson - Catcher - UC Irvine
Drew Lee - Shortstop/Second Base - Morehead State University
Tyler Lyons - Pitcher - Oklahoma State University
Clint McKeever - First Base - Wichita State University
Russell Moldenhauer - Designated Hitter/Outfield - University of Texas
Kevin Nieto - Outfield - Manhattan College
Matt Payton - Infield - Western Kentucky University
Eric Pettis - Pitcher - University of California, Irvine
Tony Plagman - First Base - Georgia Tech
Derek Poppert - Shortstop - University of San Francisco
Kenneth Roberts - Pitcher - Middle Tennessee State University
Kyle Roller - Designated Hitter/First Base - East Carolina University
Mike Sodders - Infield - New Mexico State University
Josh Spence - Pitcher - Arizona State University
David Towarnicky - First Base - Appalachian State University
Corey Valine - Third Base/Catcher - San Jose State University
