Southern Collegiate
Athletic Conference
Sports Release

Austin ● Centre ● Colorado College ● DePauw ● Hendrix ● Millsaps
Oglethorpe ● Rhodes ● Sewanee ● Southwestern ● Trinity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 21, 2007
Contact: Dwayne Hanberry, SCAC Associate Commissioner

OWEN OF MILLSAPS; FLANAGAN OF RHODES
HEADLINE 2007 ALL-SCAC BASEBALL TEAM

SUWANEE, Ga. – Hunter Owen of Millsaps College was named the league’s Offensive Player-of-the-Year and Robert Flanagan of Rhodes College was selected the league’s Pitcher-of-the-Year for the second consecutive year in exclusive 2007 all-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) voting by the conference’s head coaches. In that same balloting, Austin College head coach Carl Iwasaki was named the SCAC Coach-of-the-Year.

Owen, a junior outfielder from Jackson, Miss., hit .404 this season (sixth in the SCAC) and slugged a league-best .776. He led the SCAC in doubles (23), home runs (11), runs batted in (70) and total bases (125) and finished in the top six in the league in on-base percentage (.520 – third), runs scored (57 – fifth), hits (65 – sixth), walks (31 – tied for fourth) and stolen bases (21 – second). His 70 RBI currently leads the nation and his 23 doubles set a new single-season Millsaps record. At the 2007 Baseball Championships, Owen hit .571 (8-14) with a tournament-best four doubles and eight runs driven in as the Majors made it to the SCAC finals before losing to Austin College. Nine times the league’s Offensive Player-of-the-Year has come from Millsaps – the most such awards for any SCAC program.

Flanagan, a junior left-hander from Shreveport, La., was selected as SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Year for the second consecutive year – the first pitcher in league history to win the award in back-to-back years and only the second to win the award twice (Teddy Hymel of Millsaps won the award in 1994 and 1996). Flanagan finished the regular season with a league-high 12 wins (second in the nation) against just one loss and posted an ERA of 2.49 (second in the SCAC). Flanagan, who appeared in 16 games, also led the SCAC in innings pitched (97.2) and strikeouts (100 – third in the nation) and was third in opposing batting average (.240). No pitcher in SCAC history has won more games over a two-year stretch than Flanagan, who is 22-4 since the 2006 season.

Austin head coach Carl Iwasaki, in his third season as the Kangaroos’ skipper, was named the SCAC Coach-of-the-Year after leading his squad to a conference tournament title in the program’s first year in the league. Austin, which finished second in the SCAC West with a 9-6 division mark, earned its SCAC tournament title as the ‘Roos had to defeat 25th-ranked Rhodes once and 15th-ranked Millsaps twice, including a 9-7 victory in the title-clinching game, to advance. After taking over a team that had gone 2-36 the previous season, Austin has progressed in each year that Iwasaki has been with the program, winning 10 games in 2005, 19 in 2006 and a school-record 22 this season. As the SCAC champion, Austin made it’s first-ever NCAA tournament appearance this past weekend, falling to Pacific Lutheran and to Pomona-Pitzer in extra-innings.

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