STARKVILLE — The Mississippi State’s baseball team had its share of disappointments on the field this season.
Off the field, one Bulldog added to an impressive legacy.
Senior Seth Heck, a junior college transfer from Tacoma (Washington) Community College, was named the Southeastern Conference’s Scholar Athlete of the Year for baseball for the second consecutive season. This season, Heck started 27 games at shortstop and 21 games at third base.
In addition to Heck’s honor, Ryan Gridley, who took over the starting job at shortstop midway through the season, was named to the SEC’s All-Freshman Team. He was the only Bulldog to be recognized Monday when the league announced its all-conference teams.
For Heck, the award puts the finishing touches on a two-year career at MSU. He joins Emeel Salem of Alabama (2006-07) as the only players in league history to be voted the top baseball scholar-athlete in consecutive seasons. Thanks to Sam Frost in 2013 and Heck the past two years, MSU is the only school to have won the award in three-straight seasons.
Last season, Heck became the fourth Bulldog to win the award. He joins Frost, Jeremy Jackson (1998), and Burke Masters (1990) as winners of the award. Jackson and Masters were named the league’s overall winners before the award was given out in multiple sports.
A 2015 Capital One Academic All-District First-Team member, Heck finished the spring semester with a 4.0 grade-point average. The Edmonds, Washington, native graduated from MSU on May 9 with a degree in business administration. Earlier this month, he was named MSU’s male nominee for the H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Post-Graduate Scholarship, which is given to the league’s top scholar-athlete.
Heck finished his career by hitting .287 with four doubles and 12 RBIs. He scored 25 runs. He made eight errors in 193 chances (.959 fielding percentage).
Gridley was named one of the top freshmen in the league after starting 47 of 54 games. The Milton, Georgia, native hit .243, scored 26 runs, and had 21 RBIs, 14 walks, and nine doubles. He finished third in the league with 170 assists. He also helped MSU finish second nationally in double plays by taking part in 34 of 63 twin killings.
Scheduled to play for the Waynesboro Generals in the Valley Baseball League this summer, Gridley is MSU’s first shortstop to be named to the SEC’s All-Freshman team since Adam Frazier, at shortstop, in 2011. Frazier earned All-America honors in 2013 after leading the NCAA with a school-record 107 hits. The Pittsburgh Pirates drafted him in the sixth round of that year’s Major League Baseball First-Year Player draft.
MSU has had a player on the All-Freshman team in six out of the past seven years. He joins catcher Gavin Collins (2013), relief pitcher Jonathan Holder (2012), outfielder C.T. Bradford and Frazier (2011), starting pitcher Chris Stratton (2010), and starting pitcher Nick Routt (2009).
Arkansas slugger Andrew Benintendi was named the SEC Player of the Year, while Vanderbilt hurler Carson Fulmer was selected as the Pitcher of the Year.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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