MARIETTA, Ga. – Two current Southern Polytechnic State University baseball coaches and a former player were recently honored statewide by coaches associations for having successful 2013 seasons.
The Georgia Dugout Club, a coaches association that has been representing amateur baseball in Georgia since 1962, chose Southern Polytechnic head coach Marty Lovrich as its 2013 NAIA College Baseball Coach of the Year and former player Nick Blount as the NAIA College Baseball Player of the Year. The awards were announced on Saturday morning at the conclusion of the 2014 Georgia Dugout Club Clinic, a three-day, annual event that was held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Atlanta.
Recognized last Friday night by the Alabama Baseball Coaches Association as its 2013 Small College Division Assistant Coach of the Year was Southern Poly first-year assistant coach Scott Mularz. The small college division encompasses NCAA Division II and III members, along with NAIA institutions. Mularz, on the coaching staff at NCAA Division III Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Ala., the past five years, picked up his award during the organization's 19th annual coaches convention at the Birmingham (Ala.) Marriott Hotel.
In his first season as a collegiate head coach last year, Lovrich led his Hornets to a 39-18 overall record, including 17-13 in the rugged Southern States Athletic Conference, widely considered one of the top NAIA leagues in the country. Southern Poly received seven points in the final NAIA poll of 2013 to rank 35th nationally, the highest of any NAIA school in the state.
Blount, a 6-foot-6, 230-pound right-handed pitcher, was with the Hornets last season after spending the previous three years at the University of Tennessee. In 2013 for SPSU, he made 20 appearances with four starts, posting eight saves and a 2.74 ERA. Blount, who struck out 60 and walked just 10 in 42 2/3 innings, ranked second in the SSAC and tied for 19th nationally in the NAIA in saves. He was selected by the Chicago White Sox in the ninth round (273rd overall) of the 2013 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft held last June and spent his first professional campaign this past summer with the Great Falls (Mont.) Voyagers of the Pioneer League, an advanced rookie league affiliate of the White Sox.
At Huntingdon last year, Mularz helped lead the Hawks to a 32-11 overall record, the top seed at the NCAA Division III South Regional Championship and a final national rating of No. 25 by D3baseball.com. He served as the pitching coach in Montgomery just as he currently does at Southern Poly.
The Hornets, ranked 17th nationally in the 2014 NAIA preseason poll, begin the upcoming season on Saturday, Feb. 1 when hosting a non-conference doubleheader with Lindsey Wilson College, which is No. 15 in the preseason national rating. The opener is scheduled for noon at Sir Walter J. Kelly Sr. Memorial Field.
