Baseball – Four Broncos Recognized With All-WCC Honors

Baseball

Posted: Jun 02, 2021

SAN MATEO, Calif. – Four Santa Clara baseball student-athletes garnered All-West Coast Conference honors, the conference office announced on Wednesday. Right-handed pitcher Brandon Buckley and shortstop Jason Dicochea were named second team All-WCC with outfielder Mike Bowes and infielder Austin Reyes recognized as honorable mentions. It is the first all-conference honor for each of the Broncos.

Buckley, a graduate student, appeared in a team-high tying 16 games, starting in seven of them. The Tiburon, California native had a team-best 2.16 ERA over 41 2/3 innings while striking out 45 and walking 15. He held the opponents to only a .211 batting average to finish with a 2-1 record.

Dicochea played in all 51 games for the Broncos starting in 50 of them, all at shortstop. The senior from Redondo Beach, California hit .297 on the year and led the team in hits (60), doubles (11), RBIs (33) and tied for the team lead in runs (30). He also had 21 multi-hit and 10 multi-RBI games to top the squad.

Bowes had two memorable home runs on the year among the eight he slugged – a three-run walk-off home run in the ninth inning against crosstown rival San Francisco (April 11) and a pinch-hit game-tying homer in the ninth against Pacific (May 8) to send the game to extra innings, in a game the Broncos would eventually win.

Bowes finished with a .287 batting average over 48 games and was second on the team in hits (52), home runs (eight), doubles (eight) and RBIs (30). The graduate student also had eight stolen bases to top the squad.

Another graduate student, Reyes, led the team in batting (.304), slugging percentage (.489) and sacrifice flies (four). The Huntington Beach, California native belted five home runs for the third most on the team, over 39 games. Twenty-nine of his starts came at third base.

The all-conference selection is voted solely by the 10 conference head coaches.

The conference champion Gonzaga took home three of the five major hardwares: Alek Jacob was named WCC Pitcher of the Year, Brett Harris was named Defensive Player of the Year and Mark Machtolf was named Coach of the Year. San Diego's Thomas Luevano was named WCC Player of the Year while Luke Keaschall of San Francisco and Andrew Pintar from BYU were named Freshmen of the Year.