LUBBOCK, Texas – Eastern Illinois baseball player
Lucas Loos has been named to the 2024 Brooks Wallace Award watch list. The award honors the nation's top shortstop and will be presented by the College Baseball Foundation later this year
The top 100 shortstops in the country were announced Wednesday, led by several players putting up tremendous offensive numbers. But because the award is about more than just offense, there are several players putting up solid defensive numbers as well.
"Many of these young men are fielding their position with no errors or very few this far along into the season, which is incredible," said Larry Wallace, co-chair of the Brooks Wallace Award. "With our selections ramping up, this is one of the main skills we look for in shortstop of the year award."
The award honors the nation's top shortstop and will be presented by the College Baseball Foundation later this year. It is named for former Texas Tech shortstop Brooks Wallace, who played for the Red Raiders from 1977 to 1980. Wallace died of leukemia at the age of 27.
"The Brooks Wallace Award is wide open this season with 27 conferences represented in our initial top 100 watch list," said Tom Quigley, Brooks Wallace Award co-chair. "We have quite a few solid hitters and some heavy hitters as well."
Loos is certainly one of those heavy hitters. The senior from Payson, Illinois leads the Panthers in slugging percentage (.709) and is top five in the Ohio Valley Conference with an OPS of 1.142. He leads the OVC with 18 doubles and is fifth in home runs with 11.
He leads the team in batting average (.359) and on base percentage (.433), and has reached base in 34 consecutive games, which is the third longest streak for a Panther batter in the last five seasons. His 16 multi-hit games and 37 RBI are both second most on the team this season.
Lucas and the Panthers will be in action on Saturday in their series finale against Southern Indiana. The game is set to get underway at 3 p.m. in Evansville.
