Despite the abbreviated season, Collegiate Baseball Newspaper still recognized and honored more than 80 baseball student-athletes this week as the organization announced its 2020 NCAA Division I All-American baseball teams, powered by Diamond Sports. Two Virginia Tech players have been named to the squad as Carson Taylor and Ian Seymour earned spots on the third team.
Taylor and Seymour are just the 16th and 17th Hokies, all-time, to be named a baseball All-American and are the first to be honored since 2013 (Tyler Horan. They make up the first pair of Hokie teammates to earn All-America status in the same season since 2003 (Matt Dalton and Marc Tugwell).
A sophomore catcher from Duluth, Ga., Taylor was one of four Hokies to start all 16 games. He led the team in almost every offensive category while finishing ranked in the NCAA in 13 categories. He had a team-best seven multi-hit games, including two games with four hits, added a team-high four multi-RBI games, including a career-high five in one game, and led the team with five multi-run scoring games, scoring a career-high tying four times once.
Taylor ended the season on a career-best six-game hitting streak, as he raised his batting average from .364 to .431. In fact, Taylor entered the Bryant series with a .308 batting average and raised it 123 points over the last nine games of the year. He also reached base in the last 12 games played.
Taylor led the team with a .431 batting average, 25 hits, seven doubles, one triple (T-1st) and hit two home runs (second) for a team-best 40 total bases and a .690 slugging percentage. He added team-highs with 19 runs scored, 20 RBI, and 12 walks, one intentional. He was hit by three pitches (T-1st) for a team-best .541 on-base percentage, hit one sacrifice fly and was 2-for-2 in stolen base attempts.
He scored a team-high four game-winning runs and tied for the team best with two game-winning RBI. In the field, he did not commit an error in 137 chances and threw out two base stealers. Just before the season ended, Taylor was named to the 2020 Buster Posey National Collegiate Catcher of the Year Award Watch List.
Seymour, a junior pitcher from Westborough, Mass. was twice named a Collegiate Baseball National Player of the Week (Feb. 24 & March 9), while starting all four games he appeared in, which was tied for the most on the team..
He finished with a 2.21 ERA in 20.1 innings pitched and struck out a team-high 40 batters while walking just five. He posted a 3-0 record, which led the team in wins, and combined on one shutout, at Louisiana (Feb. 23) after tossing the first six frames.
He also pitched six innings against 29th-ranked Georgia Tech, a game in which he set a school record in an ACC regular-season game by striking out 14 Yellow Jackets. Seymour struck out at least six batters in all four outings, leading the team. He struck out the side six times during the year and held opponents to a .181 batting average, second-best on the team among pitchers with at least four innings thrown.
