For the second time in less than a week, four members of the Francis Marion University baseball team have garnered All-Region recognition, this time from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA).

Graduate student first baseman Darius Nobles and senior third baseman Todd Mattox received first-team All-Southeast accolades, while senior outfielder Will Hardee and graduate student designated hitter Leniel Gonzalez were both selected to the second team.

Last week, the four were named to the 2022 Division II Conference Commissioners Association (D2CCA) All-Southeast Region Team.

Nobles, who hails from Greenville, N.C., batted .402 with 51 runs scored, 12 doubles, two triples, 14 home runs, and 53 runs batted in. The round-trippers were the second-highest season total in FMU history.  He led FMU in both slugging percentage (.736) and on-base percentage (.518).  The former figure represents a new school record, while the latter ranks second in team history.  He ended the season having safely reached base in each of the final 27 games, and led FMU with 17 multi-RBI contests.

Mattox, a native of Winnsboro, S.C., hit .393 with 54 runs, 14 doubles, five triples (leads Conference Carolinas), two homers, 46 RBIs, and a .464 on-base percentage.  He safely reached base in 46 of the 48 games, including a 79-game streak that when snapped was only nine shy of the all-time Division II record.  He ends his career with the fourth-best average (.392) in program history.

Hardee, a local product from Evergreen and a graduate of South Florence High School, led FMU with a .405 average, along with 83 hits, 60 runs, 22 doubles (leads Conference Carolinas and ranks 11th nationally), two triples, two home runs, 39 RBIs, and a .492 on-base percentage.  He concluded the season with a 26-game hitting streak, third-longest in team history, and was 6-of-6 in stolen bases.  His hit total currently ranks 19th in NCAA Division II, while his season doubles total was the second-highest in team history.

Nobles and Hardee become only the 11th and 12th Patriots in program history to hit .400 in a season.
 
Gonzalez, the 2022 team MVP and a native of Sumter, batted .377 with 37 runs, seven doubles, a triple, seven homers, 45 RBIs, a .557 slugging percentage, and a .491 on-base percentage.

The four helped direct Francis Marion to a 29-19 record this past season – an 11-win improvement over the previous season – in the team's first year as a member of Conference Carolinas.

They also were part of the most prolific hitting team in program history.  The team's batting average of .353 leads the conference and ranks fifth nationally, and is 12 points higher than the school's single season record of .341 set in 1985. 

All four players rank among the top-10 for hitting in Conference Carolinas.  Mattox and Hardee both registered 25 multi-hit games during the season.

Nobles is a graduate of J.H. Rose High School, while Mattox is a product of Blythewood High School, and Gonzalez is a graduate of Lakewood High School.