University of Houston Athletics
Three Cougars Named to Baseball All-Region Team
6/13/2002 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
June 13, 2002
HOUSTON, Texas - Houston pitcher Brad Sullivan, relief pitcher Jesse Crain and catcher Chris Snyder were placed on the 2002 American Baseball Coaches Association/Rawlings All-South Central Region Team announced Thursday.
Sullivan and Crain were named to the First Team, while Snyder garnered Second Team honors. Fourteen players were chosen for the first team and 12 on the second team. All first-team members are eligible for All-America status. The ABCA/Rawlings All-America Teams will be announced Thursday night during the NCAA Home Run Challenge, set for 8 p.m. on ESPN.
Sullivan enjoyed one of the finest seasons in UH single-season history during the 2002 campaign. He tied a UH season record with a 13-1 record and shattered the old record with 157 strikeouts on the way to becoming the first player in C-USA history to win the pitching Triple Crown.
Already named to two All-America teams, Sullivan captured the spotlight in the postseason where he compiled a perfect 3-0 record with a 0.36 ERA in games during the C-USA Tournament, NCAA Regional at Mesa and NCAA Super Regional at Austin.
Crain, who was taken as the No. 61 pick overall by the Minnesota Twins in the recent amateur draft, set a new UH single-season record with 10 saves and compiled a 0.23 ERA with 46 strikeouts in 38.1 innings. The Boulder, Colo., native also threw 35.2 consecutive scoreless innings - the second longest streak in school history - and allowed only one earned run all season as a reliever.
Snyder was the team's offensive leader in 2002, topping the squad with a .343 batting average and a UH single-season record 71 RBIs. The Houston native, who was a second-round draft pick of the defending World Series champion Arizona Diamondbacks, also tallied 13 doubles and helped guide a Cougar pitching staff to a 3.20 team ERA, one of the finest marks in the nation.
All three Cougars helped lead UH to a berth in the 2002 NCAA Super Regional at Austin last weekend and a No. 10 ranking in both the Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball polls earlier this week.
The South Central Region is comprised of 34 schools from three conferences - Sun Belt, Southland and Southwestern Athletic - and seven additional programs (Houston, Louisiana Tech, Centenary, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas-Pan American, Samford, TCU). Head coaches in the region selected the two teams.
