Baseball | 5/20/2024 4:57:00 PM
Utah Tech junior outfielder
Hunter Katschke was the lone Trailblazer represented on the 2024 All-Western Athletic Conference postseason baseball team, which was announced on Monday by the conference office based on voting completed by the league's head coaches.
Katschke (6-3; Las Vegas, Nev./Basic HS/UNLV/College of Southern Nevada) garnered second team all-WAC honors as the Trailblazers' top hitter this past season.
The junior batted a team-high .302, and led Utah Tech in base hits (58), extra-base hits (25), home runs (13), RBI (36) and runs scored (38). Katschke also paced the team with a .568 slugging percentage, while he finished third in doubles (12), and was fourth among everyday starters with a .372 on-base percentage.
Katschke, who hit .313 in WAC play, started in 52 of 54 games played this season, during which he hit safely in 36 of those contests, highlighted by a team best 13-game hit streak midway through the campaign.
Katschke posted 18 multi-hit outings, including two three-hit games, and a 4-for-5 night with a homer, four RBI and four runs scored vs. UTRGV (3/28/24).
He also became just the third Trailblazer in the program's brief NCAA Division I era to homer three times in one game, doing so in Utah Tech's home win over Utah on May 7, against which he drove in a season-high five runs.
Katschke's 13 homers on the year are the fourth-most on Utah Tech's single season list, and ranked him t-eighth in the WAC.
Defensively, Katschke wound up second on the team in both defensive putouts (97) and assists (4), and he finished the year with a .962 fielding percentage.
Utah Tech wrapped up its fourth NCAA Division I provisional season with a 14-42 overall record, which included a 10-20 conference mark and a ninth-place finish in the WAC standings.