Cory Luebke named Big Ten Pitcher of the Year, Five other Buckeyes honored – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/22/2007 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 22, 2007
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio State junior left-handed pitcher Cory Luebke was named the Big Ten Conference Pitcher of the Year today when the conference announced its All-conference teams and individual awards.
Luebke, one of three unanimous first team picks, is the fifth Buckeye to be honored as the conference’s top pitcher and the first to win the award since Scott Lewis took home the honors in 2003. In all games this year, the Maria Stein, Ohio (Marion Local) native led the Big Ten in ERA (1.94 ERA), strikeouts (83) and innings pitched (93), while holding his opponents to a stingy .215 batting average. The Big Ten’s 2007 strikeout king, Luebke fanned 50 batters through 56.1 innings of work in the conference season while walking just 24 batters. Overall this season, the left-hander recorded a WHIP (walks-plus-hits-per-innings pitched) of 1.06 and struck out an average of eight batters per nine innings while putting together a strikeouts-to-walks ratio of 3.45. Luebke finished the regular season with a 7-1 overall record and went 3-1 in conference. His seven wins were tied for first in the league.
Four other Buckeyes were honored as All-conference selections. Catcher Eric Fryer (Jr., Reynoldsburg, Ohio/Reynoldsburg) was named second team All-Big Ten and outfielders Matt Angle (Jr., Whitehall, Ohio/Whitehall-Yearling) and J.B. Shuck (So., Galion, Ohio/Galion), and first baseman Justin Miller (So., Dayton, Va./Turner Ashby) were third team selections. Senior Jacob Howell (Ashland, Ohio/Ashland) was Ohio State’s Big Ten Sportsmanship Award honoree.
Shuck finished the regular season as Ohio State’s top hitter with a .361 average. He has 60 hits and 34 RBI. Miller leads OSU with 72 hits and 46 RBI. He is second on the team in batting at .356 overall and is third in Big Ten games with a .417 average. Angle is third at the plate with a .355 average and second in hits with 70. He leads the team with 22 stolen bases and 48 runs. Fryer is second in RBI with 44 and is hitting .335 overall, .380 in Big Ten games.
Illinois catcher Lars Davis was named the league’s Player of the Year, Purdue pitcher Matt Bischoff the Freshman of the Year and Michigan’s Rich Maloney the Coach of the Year. The rest of the All-Big Ten teams can be seen at www.bigten.org.
The Buckeyes begin Big Ten Tournament play at 3:35 p.m. ET Wednesday against third-seeded Penn State at Ray Fisher Stadium in Ann Arbor, Mich. Ohio State is making its 21st overall appearance at the Big Ten Tournament and the 19th under 20th-year head coach Bob Todd. The Buckeyes are making its 11th straight appearance at the conference tournament, the longest current streak of any school in the Big Ten and the longest in conference history.
If Ohio State wins Wednesday, they will face No. 1 seed Michigan at 7:05 p.m. Thursday. If OSU loses its first game it will play at 12:05 p.m. Thursday against the loser of the Iowa (No. 4 seed)-Illinois (5) game. The Buckeyes ended the regular season at 33-22 overall. All OSU’s tournament games will be broadcast on radio on AM 920 WMNI. All the games will also have audio available on ohiostatebuckeyes.com and be on Gametracker at ohiostatebuckeyes.com.
