Wrentham's Palioca Earns Pitcher of the Year Honors at Wheaton College

Six members of the Wheaton College baseball team, ranked no.15 overall in the latest D3baseball.com national poll, were selected to the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) All-Conference Team as voted upon by the league’s seven head coaches.

Wrentham's Alec Palioca, who will be playing for the Brockton Rox this summer, was selected as the NEWMAC Pitcher of the Year for the second consecutive season. He was automatically a first team all star.

The former King Philip standout was second in wins (six), games started (nine), third in strikeouts (51) and shutouts (one) and 11th in earned run average (2.52). Palioca averaged 8.55 strikeouts per game, a 3.6 strikeout-to-walk ratio and held opponents to a .230 batting average against in 200 at-bats. Overall on the season, Wheaton went 8-1 when Palioca started.

On April 9, Palioca became the third student-athlete in program history to earn D3baseball.com Team of the Week honors for no-hitting Coast Guard over seven innings in a 4-0 win on April 5.

Also honored were Eric Jensen, the NEWMAC Player of the Year, sophomore Apolinar De la Cruz, Frank Holbrook and Sean Ryan, who all made the first team, while Dan Gusovsky was a second team selection.  

The Lyons (30-10) earned an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament by winning their 13th NEWMAC Championship last weekend. Wheaton will make its 12th appearance in program history at the New England Regionals on Wednesday, May 15 in Harwich at Whitehouse Field.