All-WAC Baseball Honors Announced

The Western Athletic Conference today released its 1999 All-WAC baseball teams and post seasons awards as selected by the league's head coaches. Locally, BYU senior second baseman Ryan Pond was named to the first team and Cougar junior right fielder Gary Johnson was named to the second team.

TCU senior third baseman Royce Huffman was named the Player of the Year, while Freshman of the Year honors went to two second basemen, Fresno State's Tom Creighton and San Jose State's Junior Ruiz. Rice Head Coach Wayne Graham was selected as the Coach of the Year.

Pond, from Logan via Mountain Crest High and Ricks College, led the WAC in home runs with 23, slugging percentage at .724, and was third in RBI at 1.18 per game to go with his .340 batting average. Johnson, from Atherton, Calif., and a transfer from Cal-Berkeley, batted .388, and was third in WAC on base percentage at .506 and fifth in slugging at .705.

Johnson was just named the WAC Baseball Player of the Week for the week of May 10-16. He hit .667 (6-9) in two games versus Utah last week. In the first game, Johnson, was 3-4 with five RBI, two runs and two home runs. He missed the second game of the series with an injury, but came back in game three to hit another home run. He was 3-5 with three RBI and three runs in the Cougars' 16-13 victory on Saturday. For the week, he was 6-9 with eight RBI, five runs and three home runs.