By Mike Lehman, TTU Sports Information
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – A quartet of Tennessee Tech baseball players we among those honored by the Ohio Valley Conference Wednesday morning, as the league announced its annual postseason honors. Senior Cody Littlejohn, redshirt sophomore Golston Gillespie, and returning freshmen Ty Fisher and Brett Roberts all received recognition from the OVC, with votes accumulated from the league's coaches and sports information contacts.
Littlejohn earned a spot on the All-OVC First Team as an outfielder. Gillespie was the league's first baseman on the All-OVC Second Team while Roberts was the Second Team's selection at second base. Both Fisher and Roberts were picked as members of the OVC All-Freshman Team.
With the 2020 season cancelled after 15 games, and subsequently no postseason honors awarded during the year, this marks the 11th-straight season the Golden Eagles saw at least four student-athletes collect end-of-the-year honors from the OVC.
A Decatur, Ala. native, Littlejohn ends his five-year career in the purple and gold with his first All-OVC nod, providing the Golden Eagles with at least one First Team representative for the 11th consecutive season. The senior led Tech with a career-high 14 home runs and three triples, as well as a slugging percentage of .635.
Starting each of his team's 47 games, he finished the year ranked third in the league in both home runs and slugging and in the top-10 in total bases and sacrifice bunts. Littlejohn rounded out the year with a .324 batting average, 40 runs, 55 hits, five doubles, 37 RBI, eight hit-by-pitches and six stolen bases. In his final career game, he tied single-game program records with three home runs and 15 total bases in a wild, walk-off win over SIUE.
In his first season with the Golden Eagles, Gillespie kept a long-standing Tech tradition of boasting one of the top first basemen in the OVC alive with his Second-Team nod. The redshirt sophomore blasted 13 home runs and nine doubles while drawing a team-high 37 walks.
Ranking in the top-10 in the league in slugging percentage (.616), home runs and walks, the Ila, Ga. native batted .302 with 38 runs, 48 hits, 37 RBI, six stolen bases and a .990 fielding percentage. Gillespie set the program's single-season record with four games featuring multiple home runs. The switch hitter also became just the second Golden Eagle in the past 20 years to smack a round-tripper from each side of the plate in the same game.
Roberts earned dual recognition from the League, claiming a spot on the All-OVC Second Team and OVC All-Freshman Team as Tech's leading hitter. The second baseman led the purple and gold with a .343 average, 70 hits, 13 doubles and 39 RBI. He also became the first Golden Eagle to steal at least 17 bases since 2008.
The Atlanta, Ga. native concluded the year in the top-10 in the league in hits (second), stolen bases (second) and batting average (seventh). Last season, he earned Freshman All-American honors from Collegiate Baseball, the only entity to award such postseason honors in 2020.
Tech's ace on the hill for most of the season, returning rookie Ty Fisher collected an OVC All-Freshman bid as well after leading the Golden Eagles in almost every major pitching category, producing a 4.26 ERA, 6-4 record, 76.0 innings pitched, 60 strikeouts and two complete games, including a remarkable nine-inning performance in his final start of the year. He made 12 starts and 14 total appearances, tossing a seven-inning shutout over Austin Peay early in the year.
The Dalton, Ga. native ranked in the top-10 in the conference in batters struck out looking (third), wins (third) innings pitched (sixth), walks allowed (seventh) and ERA (eighth). Fisher also turned in the third-best walks-per-nine ratio (1.78) and eighth-best strikeout-to-walk ratio (4.00) in a single season in school history.
