Held named to pair of all-region teams
INDIANOLA, Iowa – Simpson College baseball's Brady Held was selected to the D3baseball.com All-Region IX First Team as a utility player on Tuesday morning and the American Baseball Coaches Association/Rawlings All-Region IX First Team as a pitcher on Tuesday afternoon.
This is the second year in a row Held has been recognized on both all-region squads. He was tabbed second team by the ABCA and third team by D3baseball.com in 2021. He's the first to land on the D3baseball.com First Team in program history and the first to be named to ABCA's top team since Truman Schmitt in 2019.
Held, the 2022 American Rivers Conference Pitcher of the Year, closed the season with a 4-0 record on the mound, picking up two wins and a save during A-R-C action. He put together a league-leading 2.23 ERA over 48.1 total innings, striking out 84 batters and allowing just 14 walks. Held limited the opposition to a .178 batting average (1st in A-R-C) and finished the season ranked second in NCAA Division III in strikeouts per nine innings (15.64).
Offensively, Held led the Storm with a .398 batting average, .488 on-base percentage and .602 slugging percentage. He recorded 41 hits, including 12 doubles and three home runs, drew 20 walks, scored a team-high 35 runs and drove in 21 runs. He finished the season with 15 multi-hit games, including five with three, and tallied multiple RBIs on four occasions.
In a season with plenty of highlights, Held grabbed attention early with an 18-strikeout performance in a seven inning win over Beloit during spring break. The single game total set a new program record and was the second-highest by any DIII pitcher this season. A few weeks later, he struck out 16 batters and launched two home runs to lift the Storm to a 2-1 win over Nebraska Wesleyan.
On April 6, the Indianola, Iowa native became the first Simpson pitcher to throw 200 strikeouts during their career. Held ended that historical outing with 11 strikeouts and added 20 over the course of his next two starts before an injury kept the senior sidelined for three of the team's final four conference series. He returned to the mound to close out the Storm's season finale at RV Loras, getting the final three outs of the 7-6 victory for the save.
Held finished his career with a 16-5 record and 231 strikeouts in 183.2 innings pitched. Along with owning the program's single game strikeout, season ERA and career strikeout records, Held compiled a school record 2.60 ERA over his 32 career appearances for the Storm. He tallied eight complete games and earned two saves during that time.
At the plate, Held ended with the ninth-highest batting average in team history (.364) as well as the eighth-best on-base percentage (.434) and 10th-highest slugging percentage (.532). He recorded 119 hits to rank 24th all-time, while scoring 80 times and driving in 55 runs. Held tallied 28 doubles, three triples and seven home runs over the course of 105 games.
