MARSHALL, Minn. – Saginaw Valley State University baseball senior Hayden Jatczak adds another accolade to his monster 2024 season. Jatczak was named to the Division II Conference Commissioners Association (D2CCA) All-America First Team as a utility pitcher. He became the fifth Cardinal baseball player to achieve All-America honors earlier when named to All-America First-Team by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA). Jatczak is the first to ever earn First-Team distinction and is the first for SVSU to earn All-America honors since 2008.
The Bay City native has also received three Midwest Region Player of the Year honors including the D2CCA, NCBWA, and most recently, the American Baseball Coaches Association/Rawling (ACBA/Rawlings). He claimed the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) Player of the Year award as well to become the first GLIAC Player of the Year from SVSU since 1993. After the season concluded in the Midwest Super Regional for the Cardinals, Jatczak ranked in the top five in all of NCAA DII in several categories including batting average, hits, hits per game, doubles, runs, runs per game and total bases. Jatczak set new single-season records for SVSU in batting average hitting .468, hits with 108, RBI with 82, runs scored with 90, doubles with 27, and home runs with 16. He also threw the first confirmed no-hitter for SVSU since 1992 with a 5-0 win against Findlay on February 18.
"Once again, Hayden produced all year on both sides of the ball," SVSU head baseball coach Adam Piotrowicz said. "Opening weekend gave everyone a preview of what the season was going to look like…when you throw a No-Hitter in game 1 of the DH and come up a double short of the cycle in game 2, you know you have a special talent in your lineup. There's not really anything he isn't capable of doing on a baseball field and deserves a chance to do it at the professional level!"
SVSU baseball hosted a postseason tournament for the first time in program history as they hosted the Midwest Regional #1 and the Midwest Super Regional. The Cardinals had never made it to the Super Regional before and ended their season with two one-run losses to the University of Indianapolis. Saginaw Valley baseball set a program record in wins with 41, GLIAC wins with 23, innings pitched with 487.0, pitching strikeouts with 433, runs scored with 516, RBI with 464, hits with 691, doubles with 142, triples with 25 and walks with 308.