SACRAMENTO -- Capping a stellar rookie campaign for the Sacramento State baseball team, freshmen Wehiwa Aloy and JP Smith added to their postseason award haul on Wednesday by being named to Collegiate Baseball's Freshman All-America Team.
Sacramento State is one of seven schools overall — and the only school on the West Coast — to have multiple honorees and only one of six schools in California to be represented on the list. The Hornets joined Jacksonville State, Missouri State, Indiana, Coastal Carolina, Samford, and Texas Tech with two named to this year's team.
It also marks the second time that Sacramento State has had two players earn the honor in the same season and the duo becomes only the eighth and ninth student-athletes to be named to Collegiate Baseball's Freshman All-America list joining Jesse Darrah (2009), Rhys Hoskins (2012), Chris Lewis (2013), Sutter McLoughlin (2013), Sam Long (20140, Parker Brahms (2017), and Scott Randall (2018).
The 2023 Western Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year and an all-conference second-team selection, Aloy was one of the most prolific hitters in the league, batting .376 in all 56 games for the Hornets, scoring 69 runs and rapping 88 hits to go along with 15 doubles, five triples, and 14 home runs. He also drove in 46 runs, slugged .662 and posted a 1.089 OPS for the season.
He ranked among the top 10 in the conference in runs scored (t2nd), triples (t2nd), hits (t3rd), runs scored per game (3rd), total bases (4th), hits per game (4th), average (6th), slugging (6th), home runs (t8th), and home runs per game (10th). The owner of 30 multi-hit games this season, Aloy also set the school record for most home runs by a freshman with his 12th of the year on April 29 at New Mexico State.
Aloy's 69 runs scored ranked second on the program's single-season list behind only Brandon Marshall's 70 in 1998, and he is the first Hornet to collect 80 hits in a season since Ian Dawkins (89) in 2018 — ranking tied for sixth on the school's single-season chart. His 14 home runs are also tied for 10th on the single-season list.
Smith, an All-WAC first-team selection, wrapped up his first Division I campaign with a .339 average to go along with 14 home runs and 45 RBI, slugging .632 on the season with a 1.010 OPS. His 14 home runs matched Aloy for the most by a freshman in the program's Division I history and included a pair of multi-homer games against Utah Valley on April 6 and Utah Tech in the regular season finale on May 20 as well as a pair of. grand slams against WAC regular season champion Grand Canyon on March 18 and nationally ranked Stanford on April 18.
He finished the season with 17 multi-hit games — eight of which came during a team-high 16-game hitting streak from April 15 to May 12 that ranks tied for ninth in school history — and drove in multiple runs 11 times, including a career-high five in the upset of the Cardinal.
SACRAMENTO STATE COLLEGIATE BASEBALL FRESHMAN ALL-AMERICANS
2009 - Jesse Darrah (P)
2012 - Rhys Hoskins (OF)
2013 - Chris Lewis (DH), Sutter McLoughlin (P)
2014 - Sam Long (P)
2017 - Parker Brahms (P)
2018 - Scott Randall (P)
2023 - Wehiwa Aloy (SS), JP Smith (DH)
