Nashville, Tenn. Baseball America has named juniors Kyle Wright and Jeren Kendall All-Americans with Wright on the second team and Kendall on the third team.
Wright has been dominant down the stretch for the Commodores, allowing opponents to hit just .169 while striking out 79 batters over 64.2 innings of his last nine starts. The big right-hander began his dominance with a shutout of Florida in mid-April, punching out a career-best 13 Gators and scattering just three hits. He followed up with seven one-hit, scoreless innings at Georgia the next week to push his streak to three straight starts without an earned run. He matched his career-best with 13 strikeouts over nine innings against Missouri before beginning a streak of three straight wins with seven scoreless innings at Arkansas in mid-May. He fanned 11 Razorbacks and struck out 11 against Alabama the next week to push his three-start total to 35 over 23.1 innings against Missouri, Arkansas and Alabama. The coaches from the Southeastern Conference named him a first team All-SEC starter and he was named to the All-Tournament team last week at the Clemson Regional for his seven strong innings against Clemson.
Kendall has been a force for the Commodores in the lineup and in center field all season. He enters the weekend at Oregon State hitting .312 with a team-best 15 home runs and 19 stolen bases. His 15 home runs are the most at Vanderbilt since Dansby Swanson, Zander Wiel and Rhett Wiseman all hit 15 during the Commodores’ 2015 campaign. Kendall has a pair of two home run games this season, hitting two against Southeastern Louisiana in February and two more at Kentucky in April. The All-American nod is the second in as many years for the Holmen, Wisc. native after receiving third team honors from the NCBWA last year. He was also a Freshman All-American in 2015 making him the first Vanderbilt player since Carson Fulmer to earn All-American honors in three straight years. The All-American nod adds to Kendall’s first team All-SEC status and All-Tournament team recognition from the Clemson Regional last week.
Under head coach Tim Corbin, 23 Commodores have earned All-American status since 2004. Prior to Corbin’s arrival, Vanderbilt had just 10 All-Americans in program history.
Vanderbilt is set to begin a best-of-three NCAA Super Regional series at top-seeded Oregon State tomorrow night at 8 p.m. CT on ESPN2.
