Gonzaga baseball picks up three West Coast Conference individual honors

Gonzaga baseball picked up a trio of individual honors when the West Coast Conference season awards were announced Wednesday.

Starting pitcher and former North Central standout Alek Jacob was named pitcher of the year, infielder Brett Harris was defensive player of the year and Mark Machtolf earned coach of the year honors.

San Diego’s Thomas Luevano was named the conference player of the year.

Jacob is the sixth Zag to collect the top pitcher honor and the first since former Major League reliever Tyler Olson capped a three-year run for Gonzaga in 2013. Jacob went 7-1 in 76.2 innings, posting a 2.82 ERA in 10 starts.

Harris committed just two errors, posted a strong .969 fielding percentage and helped turn three double plays to go along with 30 assists and 32 putouts. At the plate, the junior batted .343 with 10 doubles and 20 RBIs.

Machtolf earned his fourth coach of the year honor after guiding Gonzaga to its fifth WCC regular-season title in program history and fourth since 2013.

Jacob and Harris earned All-WCC first-team honors, while catcher Tyler Rando and pitcher/infielder Gabriel Hughes were on the second team.

GU players listed as honorable mentions were Brody Jessee, Andrew Orzel, Michael Spellacy, Grayson Sterling and Trystan Vrieling.

Hughes, Sterling and Vrieling also made the freshman team.