Four baseball Lions are All-SEC

For the second straight year, Caleb Griffin, Jaxon Strinmoen and Elijah Solum were named to the All-Southeast Conference Baseball Team and were joined in 2023 by Spring Grove teammate Brandon Jahnke. Also repeating as Honorable Mention was Ezra Griffin. It was the first time that as many as four baseball Lions were named All-SEC.

Including third-place Spring Grove (12-9, 8-4 SEC), the top three teams, dominated the voting with 14 of the 18 selections. Conference co-champions Lyle/Pacelli (24-2, 11-1 SEC) and Southland (16-4, 11-1 SEC) each had five players named.

L/P sophomore pitcher/outfielder Hunter VaDeer was the Player of the Year and one of 11 repeat selections. Mabel-Canton junior Cayden Tollefsrud was a First Team honoree for a third season. Despite that experience, it is still a relatively young cast with 12 of the 18 First Team selections retaining eligibility for 2024.

Caleb Griffin, a senior, pitched 66 strikeouts in over 40 innings, more than three times as many strikeouts as walks (20) with a 3.30 earned run average. Opponents batted only .181 against Griffin. When not pitching, he was versatile enough to play almost any position, infield or outfield. He batted .306, stole 13 bases and scored 20 runs.  In addition to a pair of First Team All-SEC seasons, Griffin received honorable mention as a sophomore

Strinmoen, a junior first baseman/pitcher, batted a team-high .429, scored 20 runs, batted in a team-high 19 scores and stole 14 bases. He drew several pitching assignments but was a fixture at first base with an exemplary .973 fielding percentage.

Solum, a junior centerfielder, had a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage and batted .412 until a non-baseball injury forced him out of the lineup for approximately the last half of the season, missing 10 of the last 21 games. He had a team-high on-base percentage (.523) and then was a threat on the base paths, stealing 10 bases through the first six games.

Jahnke, a sophomore, played third base and occasionally first base while not pitching a team-high 42 innings with a team-best 1.83 earned run average. He logged 44 strikeouts in those 42 innings. At the plate, he batted .279 with 15 runs batted and a team-high seven doubles.

Ezra Griffin received honorable mention as a sophomore catcher, who batted .317 while drawing a team-high 15 walks and matching a team-high seven extra-base hits, including a home run. He defended with a .990 fielding percentage.