FORT WORTH, Texas – San Diego State junior outfielder Cole Carrigg (Turlock, Calif.) received additional acclaim on Wednesday when he was named to the Bobby Bragan National Collegiate Slugger Award Preseason Watch List, as announced by the Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation.
Inaugurated in 2017, the Bobby Bragan National Collegiate Slugger Award is presented annually to the most outstanding NCAA Division I offensive player based on personal integrity, athletic performance and academic achievement. At its inception, the award honored the top Division I collegiate hitter in Texas and evolved into a regional accolade by 2019 encompassing the neighboring states of Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico and Louisiana before expanding to national recognition the following year in 2020.
Carrigg is one of 51 players on this year's Bobby Bragan Award Preseason Watch List representing 19 conferences around the country, including every Power 5 conference. In all, the list features 11 seniors, 35 juniors and five sophomores.
A native of Turlock, California, Carrigg garnered first-team all-Mountain West accolades in 2022 after leading the Aztecs in several categories, including a slash line of .388/.426/.509, as well as hits (83), doubles (15), total bases (109), RBIs (40), and stolen bases (19).
Carrigg ranked among the MW leaders last season in steals (2nd, 19), batting average (3rd, .388), sacrifice bunts (T-4th, 5) and hits (T-8th, 83). Additionally, he also occupied the fifth in the spot conference with 1.54 hits per game, which was good for 35th nationally.
Over the final two months of the 2022 campaign (31 games), Carrigg hit .448 (57-127) with 27 RBIs, 23 runs scored and 14 stolen bases raising his season average from .299 to .388 during that span.
Earlier this month, Carrigg was named Mountain West Preseason Player of the Year by D1Baseball.com in its conference preview and was also named to the preseason all-Mountain West team in a vote of league's head coaches.
The 2023 Bobby Bragan National Collegiate Slugger Award will be announced in June and honored at a gala later this fall at the Fort Worth Club.
Texas Tech's Hunter Hargrove won the initial BBNCSA in 2017, while Dallas Baptist's Devlin Granberg took home the honor in 2018, followed by Texas Tech's Josh Jung in 2019. No award was presented in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic that cut the collegiate baseball season short. However, East Carolina's Connor Norby merited the BBNCSA in 2021, while last year's winner was Ivan Melendez from the University of Texas.
Carrigg and the Aztecs open their 2023 campaign this weekend when they travel to the desert for a three-game series against Arizona State, Feb. 17-19, at Phoenix Municipal Stadium.