Kaczrowski, Roiger garner top MIAC baseball honors

Individual players honors earned several top honors this season, tallying three MIAC athlete of the week honors and one national pitcher of the week honor, en route to a 23-18, 12-8 MIAC record. Their third straight 20+ win season comes after winning 26 games in 2006 and 22 games in 2007.

Leading the list of MIAC post-season honorees were junior shortstop Dan Kaczrowski (St. Anthony, Minn.) and senior LHP Josh Roiger (West St. Paul, Minn.) - named by the conference to be the co-player of the year and pitcher of the year, respectively.

The 2008 MIAC co-player of the year, Kaczrowski, was also the MIAC hitter of the week for the week ending on April 21. Kaczrowski tore through conference pitching, hitting .500 against MIAC opponents with 18 RBI and 24 runs scored. He hit nine doubles, one triple and four homeruns this season.

His hitter of the week honor came after he led the Pipers to a 3-1 week and a long-awaited win over St. Olaf - the first since April, 2004. Kaczrowski hit .706 while going 12-for-17 at the plate, and was perfect at shortstop in those four games.

Overall in 2008, Kaczrowski hit .477 to lead the Pipers, with 40 RBI and 54 runs scored.

He shares the year-end honor with Ole Todd Mathison.

Roiger's piled up numerous honors in his senior season as he recorded an overall 1.86 ERA and 7-3 record. In MIAC regular season play, Roiger had a 1.19 ERA and was 4-0 on the mound with one save. He threw 44 strikeouts and only walked five batters in 37.2 innings of work in seven appearances for the Pipers.

The highlight of Roiger's season came in collecting a win and a save in a historic Piper sweep of St. Thomas. The sweep over St. Thomas on their field marked the first time that the Tommies were swept in an MIAC baseball doubleheader in six seasons, covering 62 doubleheaders. It was the first time St. Thomas was swept at home in 10 years.

Against the Tommies, Roiger came in from left field for the save in the seventh inning of the opener. While facing the minimum number of batters in the seventh inning in the game one 6-5 win Roiger struck out two and gave up one hit.

He then returned to the mound 30 minutes later to pitch a complete-game shutout in game two.  In that game, Roiger walked none and gave up just four hits, none with runners on base. He also threw six strikeouts in shutting down the Tommies.

Following that performance, Roiger was named the MIAC pitcher of the week for the week ending on April 28, and days later was named the national pitcher of the week by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association for the week of April 21-27.

Roiger was also named to the 2008 All-MIAC sportsmanship team.

Joining Kaczrowski and Roiger on the All-Conference team are senior infielder Andrew Bennett (St. Paul, Minn.) and junior outfielder Ben Smith (Orono, Minn.).

Bennett earned the first MIAC hitter of the week honor distributed this season, which covered the first weeks of the season.

En route to winning the honor, he started all of Hamline's opening 17 games, leading the Pipers with a batting average of .474 while scoring 23 runs and 23 RBI on 27 hits, including seven doubles and five homeruns. He also had 11 stolen bases on 12 attempts, and drew nine walks while only striking out six times in 57 at-bats.

Bennett hit .516 with runners on base, and .529 with runners in scoring position. With a runner on third, he hit .917, tallying 11 RBI in 12 opportunities.

In helping the Pipers go 5-4 in complete games played in Arizona (Hamline also concluded, and won, a game that had been started in Minnesota on the first day the season), Bennett hit .677 in going 21-for-31 from the plate, and scored 14 runs and 13 RBI. He only had one strikeout in 31 at-bats in the nine games played in Arizona.

Against MIAC pitching in the regular season, Bennett hit .386 with 22 RBI. Overall, Bennett was second on the team in hitting at .403, and drove in 49 runs and score 43 while hitting 13 doubles, 5 triples, and 8 homeruns. Bennett will graduate as the homerun leader at Hamline with 24 in his career.  

Smith was a key factor at the plate in the Pipers' playoff run. Against regular season MIAC pitching, Smith started all 20 conference games and hit .406 with 21 RBI and 11 runs scored.

Overall, he hit .367 on the season with 42 RBI and 31 runs scored. 

His clutch hitting was exemplified down the stretch as the Pipers fought for the final playoff berth.

In the win against Bethel in the last doubleheader of the season that clinched the #3 playoff seed, Smith went 3-for-6 with two runs scored and three RBI. The week before he drove in two runs in a key win during a split with Saint John's to stay in the playoff race.