Eight LR Baseball Players Earn All-Conference Honors
ROCK HILL, S.C. - The South Atlantic Conference announced its baseball all-conference awards on Thursday, as Lenoir-Rhyne had eight total members across the three teams.
Sal Carricato, the redshirt junior from Long Island, N.Y., was the lone member from LR that received first team all-conference status. Carricato has a share for the conference-best 17 home runs alongside Wingate's Brett Adams, and is third in the league with 59 runs batted in.
The designated hitter led the Bears with 125 total bases in the 2024 regular season, which was good enough for fourth best in the league. His average of .35 home runs per game is good enough to lead the SAC.
In the second team, LR took both spots on the right side of the infield with first baseman Tyler McPeak and second baseman Cole Laskowski.
McPeak, the graduate student from Denver, N.C., has the highest batting average on the Bears with a .391 mark, which is also good enough to rank No. 5 in the conference. He also has the best OPS on the team with a 1.161 tally.
Laskowski, the redshirt junior from Lancaster, N.Y., leads the Bears with 193 at-bats and ranks fourth on the team with 65 hits. He was also one of the five Bears during the regular season to collect at least a double, triple and home run.
In addition to being named all-conference at the second base, Laskowski was also the lone LR player to be named to All-SAC Defense. In his 49 starts for the Bears, he has committed only three errors while producing a .985 fielding percentage, which included 116 assists.
Joining the pair of infielders on the second team was starting pitcher Dillon Chapa, the junior from Waller, Texas. In his first season at LR, Chapa has a team-high 13 starts for the Bears and has a team-high seven victories. He currently has the second-most strikeouts on the team with 61 punchouts.
Moving forward to the third team, the Bears had a couple of outfielders listed with Blake Bean and Khi Holiday.
Bean, the graduate student from Farmington Hills, Mich., finished tied for second on the team with 65 hits during the regular season. He is also one of the three Bears to notch a team-high 15 doubles while scoring 53 runs, which is good enough for second-most on the squad.
Holiday, the junior from Tupelo, Miss., led the conference with 65 runs during the 2024 campaign. While averaging 1.33 runs per game, he also leads the team with 21 stolen bases, which is good enough for sixth best in the conference.
The other two LR members to be named to the third team made up one of the stronger batteries across the SAC in the final month of the regular season, with catcher Cole Stanford and starting pitcher Kellen Gradisar.
Stanford, the redshirt junior from Ellerslie, Ga., is one of the four LR players to record 10 or more home runs while driving in 39 runs in his 37 appearances. After a slow start to the regular season, Stanford returned to form as he ranks No. 4 on the team with 13 multi-RBI games.
Gradisar, the freshman from Missouri City, Texas, ended the regular season as one of the strongest pitchers in the rotation. Not only did the true freshman record the team's lone complete game with a road victory at Wingate, but he also leads the rotation with a 3.78 ERA and a 1.34 WHIP.
