CSC Release

SAINT PETER, Minn. – Five Gustavus student-athletes were named to the College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District baseball team on Tuesday, June 3. 

The five Gusties honored were fifth-year Adam Biewen (Golden Valley, Minn./Robbinsdale Armstrong), sophomores Danny Gavin (Iowa City, Iowa/Regina Catholic) and Brayden Kohls (Norwood, Minn./Norwood Young America), and seniors Brady Schmitz (Apple Valley, Minn./Eastview) and Luke Siegle (Blaine, Minn./Totino Grace).

Each institution may nominate up to five student-athletes for Academic All-District recognition in softball. Nominees must be a sophomore or older with a 3.5 cumulative GPA or higher. On the field, nominees must have played 90 percent of their team's games or started 66 percent of the season. Pitchers must have made either 17 appearances or pitched 25 innings to be eligible at the time of nomination (May 27). The Academic All-America baseball team will be announced on July 1.

The honor is the first for Gavin and classmate Kohls, while Schmitz is a two-time honoree and Biewen and Siegle have earned the award in each of their last two seasons. 

Biewen collects his third All-District honor with the baseball team and sixth overall (three-time honoree in basketball) as a statistics major and computer science minor with a 3.86 GPA. The MIAC Pitcher of the Year earned his first All-Region honor last week (May 27) as a member of the D3baseball.com Region IX First Team. The southpaw finished a three-time All-MIAC selection and ended his career fourth in program strikeouts (168), fifth in appearances (43), and seventh in both starts (28) and wins (16). 

Biewen ended the season with a 3.45 ERA and an unblemished 7-0 record, appearing in 12 games and starting in 10. He pitched 57.1 innings, allowing 53 hits and 22 earned runs while striking out 71 batters. His 71 strikeouts rank second in a single season in program history, and led the conference with 20 batters caught looking. 

Gavin, a business management major with a 3.71 GPA, led the Gusties at the plate alongside classmate Kohls, batting .413 in 184 at-bats. An All-Region first team selection by both D3baseball.com and the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA), Gavin ranked in the top-25 of three different NCAA statistics in the regular season, sharing eighth with Kohls with 74 hits, while his .438 batting average was 17th and 58 runs 21st. He led the MIAC in runs scored (59) – also a single-season program record – and walks (33). He finished second behind Gavin in both at-bats (184) and hits (76). 

Kohls led the heavy-hitting Gusties with a .416 batting average, playing and starting in all 46 games in the outfield. The sophomore set the single-season program record for at-bats in a season with 190 and finished second in both hits (79) and RBI (55), both team-leading statistics. Kohls collected 19 extra-base hits, 13 of which were doubles, with a slugging percentage of .563. His 74 hits in the regular season tied for eighth among all NCAA Division III players, and his three team-leading statistics (at-bats, hits, RBI) were the best marks in the conference, as well. He collected a pair of first-team All-Region honors and his first All-MIAC selection alongside Gavin. Kohls (undecided) has a 3.54 GPA. 

A business management major with a 3.51 GPA, Schmitz played and started in 40 games prior to injury in his senior season. He finished seventh on the team with a .323 batting average (43-for-133) with nine doubles and a pair of home runs, as well as 34 RBI. He scored 43 runs which ranked fifth in the MIAC, with three of the top four belonging to his teammates (Gavin, Kohls, and Chris Knowles). The senior infielder graduated having played in 84 games (78 starts) with a .321 average (89-for-277), 89 runs, 16 doubles, seven homers, and 64 RBI. 

A two-way starter for the Gusties in his final season, Siegle, collected his third All-District honor with a 3.81 GPA in financial economics and communications. He earned his second All-Region honor from D3baseball.com and first at third base, starting all 46 games between the mound and the infield. He batted .338 with 44 hits in 130 at-bats. The senior collected a team-high 15 doubles alongside 36 RBI and a .554 slugging percentage. On the mound, he appeared in 12 games, starting in 11, with an ERA of 5.98 and a 5-2 record in 46.2 innings. He finished his career with the program record for pitching starts (38), was third in career program strikeouts (169) and appearances (44), and fourth in wins (20-8). 

Gustavus finished first in the MIAC for the third time in the last three seasons with a 17-3 record (37-9 overall) and won its first MIAC playoff title this spring. The Gusties were selected to host a four-team regional in the team's NCAA tournament debut, winning its first game, before dropping to the elimination bracket where the season ended with a pair of losses. 

In the regular season, Gustavus led the MIAC in batting average (.349), doubles (96), hits (504), home runs (40), on-base percentage (.443), runs (396), scoring margin (+9.2), slugging percentage (.519), strikeout-to-walk ratio (2.57), strikeouts per nine innings (8.5), walks per nine innings (3.32), and winning percentage (.837). The Gusties' .349 batting average ranked fourth in Division III, while their slugging percentage was 11th, on-base percentage 12th, and 504 hits 13th.