By Mike Lehman, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – For the eighth consecutive year, a member of the Tennessee Tech baseball team heard his name among those called throughout the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.
Coming as no surprise to anyone associated with the Golden Eagle program, All-American shortstop Dylan Bosheers was the latest Tech draftee in a long line of great talent to come through the program over the past decade, being selected with the ninth pick of the 15th round of the 2015 MLB Draft by the Philadelphia Phillies.
With Bosheers moving on to the next step of his career the Golden Eagles kept its Ohio Valley Conference-leading streak of consecutive years with an MLB draftee alive and into its eighth season.
The first middle infielder to be drafted in program history, Bosheers built a reputation of consistency and just overall great play over four seasons in the purple and gold, missing just three games (all this season due to injury) and always providing the Golden Eagles with a brilliant effort both offensively and defensively.
The senior led the Golden Eagles, in 2015, with a .337 batting average, 50 runs scored, 69 hits, 20 doubles and a slugging percentage of .576. He ranked second on the squad with nine home runs, 43 RBI and a .424 on base percentage and racked up yet another solid year at shortstop, yielding a fielding percentage of .962.
A four-time All-American and the Ohio Valley Conference Preseason Player of the Year, Bosheers captured his second consecutive appearance on the OVC All-First Team (the fourth-straight OVC postseason honor for the senior) and also found himself on the Brooks Wallace Shortstop of the Year Award Watch List for the third straight season.
In three OVC Tournament games, Bosheers was a one-man wrecking crew, batting .400 with a double, two home runs, and five RBI, clinching a spot on the OVC All-Tournament Team for the second consecutive year.
With yet another fantastic year added to his already impressive resume, Bosheers made huge dents in the Golden Eagle record books, finishing his career ranked first in doubles (60), second in games played (221), at bats (846), runs scored (191), hits (279) and total bases (441), third in RBI (179) and seventh in home runs (30). He became just the fifth Tech player to ever garner 100 or more walks, taking 101 free passes in his career while also cracking the top 10 in OVC history in hits, tying for ninth all time. In four years, he and his fellow seniors became the winningest senior class in program history, collecting a school-record 127 victories as well a program-record of 68 conference wins.
Over his four-year career, Bosheers earned a trophy case worth of honors and awards, including all of the following:
- 2015 Perfect Game Preseason OVC Player of the Year
- 2015 Perfect Game Preseason All-OVC Team
- 2015 Preseason OVC Player of the Year
- 2015 NCBWA Preseason All-America Third Team
- 2015 d1baseball.com OVC Preseason Player of the Year
- 2015 Collegiate Baseball newspaper Louisville Slugger Preseason All-America Third Team
- 2014 Rawlings/ABCA All-American Second Team
- 2014 Rawling/ABCA South All-Region First Team
- 2014 NCBWA All-America Second Team
- 2014 Mizuno Brooks Wallace Shortstop of the Year Award Semifinalist
- 2014 Collegiate Baseball newspaper Louisville Slugger All-American Second Team
- 2014 College Sports Madness All-American Fourth Team
- 2014, 2015 OVC All-Tournament Team
- 2014, 2015 All-OVC First Team
- 2014 Dick Howser Trophy Semifinalist
- 2014, 2015 Preseason All-OVC Team
- 2013 All-OVC Second Team
- 2013, 2014 Mizuno Brooks Wallace Shortstop of the Year Watch List
- 2012 OVC All-Freshman Team
- OVC Player of the Week
