Four Anteaters honored

UC Irvine baseball standout Ben Orloff has been named Division I Gold Glove shortstop by Rawlings and the American Baseball Coaches Assn.

Orloff, the Brooks Wallace Award winner as the nation’s best shortstop and the Big West Conference Player of the Year, also was recognized as a second-team All-American by the ABCA.

UCI pitcher Danny Bibona also earned second-team All-American laurels and joined Orloff on the ABCA’s All-West Region first team.

UCI pitchers Christian Bergman and Eric Pettis were named second-team all-region.

Orloff is the first player from UCI to earn the Gold Glove distinction. In his senior season, he made seven errors and posted a fielding percentage of .976.

He also hit .358 and led the Anteaters with 91 hits, 62 runs and 18 stolen bases.

Orloff, drafted in the ninth round by the Houston Astros, also had 28 runs batted in for UCI, which finished 45-15 and won the program’s first Big West Conference title.

Bibona, the Big West Pitcher of the Year, was 12-1 with a 2.63 earned-run average as a junior left-hander. He struck out 108 in 106 innings, while allowing just 78 hits and an opponents’ batting average of .208.

Bibona was drafted in the 16th round by the St. Louis Cardinals.

Bergman’s junior season featured a 9-3 record and a 3.50 ERA. He struck out 66 and walked only 16 in 97 2/3 innings.

Pettis led the Big West with 17 saves, which tied a school single-season record he already shared with Blair Erickson.

He was 5-2 with a 3.86 ERA, striking out 37 in 42 innings, over 29 appearances. His 17 saves ranked third in the nation.

— From staff reports