ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Five Indiana State baseball players were selected to the Missouri Valley Baseball Scholar-Athlete team as announced by the conference office on Wednesday morning.
Adam Pottinger (OF) and Mike Sears (3B) were both selected to the conference’s First Team, while Dominic Listi (OF), Luke Hayden (P), and Cameron Holycross (P) all were voted onto the team by the league’s baseball sports information directors after the championship.
Pottinger, an Organizational Leadership & Supervision major, was an MVC All-Defensive team selection this season. The Sycamore centerfielder posted a .296 batting average over 59 starts on the year finishing with 64 hits, 10 home runs, and 43 RBIs. The Deerfield, Ill. native posted a .491 slugging percentage and .418 on-base percentage over the season on his way to recording double-digit home runs for the second consecutive season. Pottinger added a .993 fielding percentage over 146 total chances on the field.
Sears, pursuing his MBA at Indiana State, earned Second Team All-Conference honors as the Cincinnati, Ohio native set new Indiana State single-season home run record and established a new career home run mark over the course of the 2024 season. Sears hit multiple home runs in five separate games over the course of the season and was a two-time MVC Player of the Week while hitting .274 from the plate with a .726 slugging percentage. He led the team with 77 total RBIs on the year.
Listi, pursuing his MBA at Indiana State, was a 2024 Second Team All-MVC selection and was most recently named to the Lexington Regional All-Tournament team. The Crystal Lake, Ill. native reached base in the first 28 games of the 2024 season on his way to posting a .324 batting average on his way to recording 70 hits and scoring 57 runs scored. He led Indiana State and finished among the Valley leaders with .464 on-base percentage, while homering three times in conference play coming against Illinois State, Belmont, and Evansville. He highlighted his postseason with a four-hit game in ISU’s 6-4 win over Western Michigan at the Lexington Regional.
Hayden, a Sports Management major, was a Second Team All-MVC selection and All-Tournament team recipient following a dominant first year in the Missouri Valley. The Bloomington, Ind. native posted a 7-2 record with 16 starts in the 2024 season while adding a 3.81 ERA over 78.0 innings on the mound. He posted a team-high 91 strikeouts, including a career-high 11 in the series clinching complete game win over Ilinois State. He allowed opponents to hit just .248 from the plate on the season.
Holycross, pursuing his MBA at Indiana State, earned Scholar-Athlete Second Team honors following another strong season on the mound. The Lapel, Ind. native posted a 4.81 ERA over 33.2 innings on the mound making 13 appearances while drawing four starts. Holycross was pressed into the weekend rotation early in the year due to injuries and posted a 2-1 record on the mound while adding a 34:13 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Opponents hit just .239 from the plate against Holycross on the season.
Belmont’s Brodey Heaton has been selected as the 2024 Missouri Valley Conference Baseball Scholar-Athlete of the Year and headlines a group of 25 student-athletes named to the league’s first and second scholar-athlete teams.
Valparaiso’s Alex Ryan earned scholar-athlete honors for the third-straight year while Heaton and two-time Elite 17 honoree, Donovan Schultz from Evansville, landed a spot on the first team for the second-consecutive year.
Ten of the 14 first-team spots were filled by seniors or graduate students. All 11 members of the second team are first-time selections to a MVC scholar-athlete team.
The criteria for the MVC Scholar-Athlete Team nominations parallels the College Sports Communicators (CSC) standards for Academic All-America selections. Nominees must be starters or important reserves, with at least a 3.50 cumulative grade point average as both an undergraduate and graduate student unless they are in their first semester as a graduate student and don’t have an established GPA. Student-athletes must have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at their institution.