Manoah earns First Team All-American honors

Add another accolade to West Virginia’s ace starting pitcher Alek Manoah’s list–a list that seemingly grows by the day. Yesterday, Collegiate Baseball Newspaper named Manoah a First Team All-American.

The 2019 Big 12 Conference Pitcher of the Year, Manoah is currently putting together one of the best seasons in West Virginia baseball history, while also becoming a top-15 prospect for the Major League Baseball Draft, which begins Monday.

With a 9-3 win/loss record, Manoah is nationally ranked in a multitude of statistical categories. Arguably most impressive is Manoah’s ERA, which currently sits at 1.85. He’s ninth in the country among starters that have gone on to toss more than 90 innings on the season and third among those that have completed more than 100 innings. AK47 is a strikeout machine, punching out the fifth-most batters in the nation with 135, a WVU season record. What’s even better for the Mountaineer defense is Manoah’s control. He’s 10th in the country in WHIP (0.88), and he strikes out nearly six batters for every one he walks with just 23 in 15 appearances.

A phenom from Miami, Florida, Manoah is the first Mountaineer to be named a First Team All-American since current St. Louis Cardinal Jedd Gyorko was honored in 2010. Before Gyorko, West Virginia had two other First Team All-Americans, Chris Enochs in 1997 and Bill Marovic in 1964. He’s the 19th Mountaineer to earn All-America honors in program history.

The two most notable national awards that Manoah is a finalist and semifinalist for, respectively, is the National Pitcher of the Year by the College Baseball Foundation and the Dick Howser Trophy by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. The Howser Trophy is awarded to the player of the year in college baseball.

Manoah and the Old Gold and Blue host the first NCAA Baseball Tournament Regional in Morgantown since 1955 this weekend at Monongalia County Ballpark. Top-seeded WVU opens its tournament run against fourth-seeded Fordham tonight at 8 p.m. ET. It is anticipated that Manoah will start Saturday against the winner of Texas A&M and Duke, the Regional’s second and third seeds, respectively.