Northwestern University Athletics
Hietpas Receives GTE/CoSIDA Academic Honor
5/11/2000 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 11, 2000
EVANSTON, Ill. - Northwestern baseball player Joe Hietpas (Appleton, Wis./North) was named to the GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-America Baseball Team for District 5, which includes all NCAA Division 1 players from the states of Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconain along with the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba. The team was announced today after being voted on by members of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
All members of the District 5 team now move on for consideration on the national team. Last year, Hietpas was a member of the GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-America Baseball Second Team nationally.
Hietpas, a junior catcher, has been one of Northwestern's best players offensively and defensively this spring as the Wildcats head into the final regular-season weekend eyeing a Big Ten Tournament berth. He is currently tops on the team and seventh in the Big Ten with a .368 batting average, leads the Wildcats with five home runs and 45 runs batted in, and is tied for the team lead with 15 doubles. In addition, he boasts a team-high 13 games with two or more RBI, and 19 games with two or more hits. Defensively, he has thrown out 17 of 47 potential base stealers (36.2%) including 11 of 23 in Big Ten play (47.8%).
In March, he was named Big Ten Player of the Week after earning Most Valuable Player honors at the Homestead (Fla.) Challenge. In that event, he went 7-for-13 (.538) at the plate with five runs and four RBI. In the championship game against Ohio State, he went 3-for-5 with three runs and two RBI.
Overall, the Northwestern baseball team is 28-23. At 11-13 in the Big Ten, the Wildcats hold a magic number of three over Iowa in the battle for the final conference playoff spot. Any combination of three Wildcat wins over Penn State or Iowa losses to Michigan this weekend would clinch the berth for Northwestern.
