VMI head baseball coach Tom Slater was named 2003 Southern Conference Coach of the Year on Wednesday as the SoCon baseball coaches named the all-conference team. Keydet third baseman Kelly Sweppenhiser (Herndon, Pa.) was selected as the SoCon Freshman of the Year.

Slater engineered VMI's turnaround from a disastrous 10-41 season last year (1-27 in the SoCon) to a seventh-place finish in 2003 with a 22-26 overall record and a 16-14 league mark. The 16 league wins represents an all-time high for the Keydets. He is the first Keydet skipper to earn the award since Paul Maini did so in 1988.

Sweppenhiser, a third baseman, is currently hitting .318 with three home runs and 25 RBIs.

The coaches selected Western Carolina's Alan Beck as the Player of the Year and Furman's Tom Mastny as its Pitcher of the Year.

Beck, a senior left fielder, hit .338 with a league-leading 17 home runs and a league-high 68 runs batted in. Beck led Western Carolina to the Southern Conference regular season championship.

Mastny, a senior right-hander, led the SoCon with a 1.17 earned run average while compiling a 10-2 record in the regular season. He also leads the conference 115.0 innings pitched and seven complete games while holding opponents to a .179 batting average.



The rest of the All-Southern Conference Coaches team follows:

First Team
P Tom Mastny, Furman
P Jarrett Santos, UNC Greensboro
Relief David Mitchell, Furman
C Matt Lauderdale, Coll of Charleston
1B Chip Cannon, The Citadel
2B Lee Curtis, Coll of Charleston
SS Andy Howdeshell, East Tennessee State
3B Chris Ard, The Citadel
OF Alan Beck, Western Carolina
OF Rod Goldston, Western Carolina
OF Brendan Gilligan, Georgia Southern
DH Ryan Gordon, UNC Greensboro


Second Team
P Derrick Hawk, Western Carolina
P Dennis Dove, Georgia Southern
Relief Matt Hamer, The Citadel
C Derek Norman, Furman
1B Todd Buchanan, Western Carolina
2B Jason Sarvis, UNC Greensboro
SS Wayne Kilmer, Western Carolina
3B Carlos Love, Georgia Southern
OF Brett Spivey, Coll of Charleston
OF Sam Navarro, Davidson
OF Brook Dantzler, The Citadel
DH Grant Burruss, Georgia Southern