Chip Hale Pac-12 Coach of the Year, Salpointe grad Mason White all-conference selection

Information from Arizona’s media-relations department contributed to this report

Chip Hale earned the distinction of becoming the first person in Pac-12 baseball history and just the second in conference history regardless of sport or gender to be a player of the year and coach of the year.

The Pac-12 announced its baseball awards Tuesday and Arizona’s program had the most all-conference honorees in more than a decade in addtion to Hale’s coach of the year honor.

Hale was also a co-Pac-10 Southern Division (Six-Pac) player of the year in 1987 with UCLA’s Torey Lovullo (now the Arizona Diamondbacks’ manager).

Oregon State gymnastics coach Tanya Chaplin won multiple coach and player of the year awards.

Hale is fourth Arizona coach to earn the Pac-10/12 coach of the year selection joining his former skipper Jerry Kindall (1980, 1989 and 1992), Andy Lopez (2012) and Jay Johnson (2021).

In addition to Hale’s coach of the year honor, his starting rotation of Jackson Kent, Clark Candioitti and Cam Walty are all first-team selections.

Shortstop Mason White (Salpointe graduate), outfielder Brendan Summerhill and second baseman Garen Caulfield were also first-team selections.

Mason is the 16th different player from Southern Arizona to be selected to the All-Pac-10/12 First Team. It is the 21st pick from Southern Arizona overall with pitchers Ed Vosberg (Salpointe) and Gil Heredia (Nogales), catcher Steve Strong (Sabino), designated hitter/outfielder Robbie Moen (Flowing Wells) and catcher Cesar Salazar (Sahuaro) each earning the honor twice.

ARIZONA FIRST-TEAM ALL-PAC-10/12 PLAYERS FROM SOUTHERN ARIZONA

Six all-conference selections ties a program record and is the most for Arizona since the 2012 season in which the Wildcats won a national championship team. That team also tallied six.

Arizona also picked up a pair of honorable-mention selections — outfielder Emilio Corona and relief pitcher Casey Hintz.

Hale took a team picked to finish ninth in the Pac-12 preseason coaches poll all the way to a regular-season championship, the sixth in program history.

From March 24–April 26, the Wildcats won 11 consecutive Pac-12 games, the program’s longest single-season conference win streak since they joined the Pac-10 for the 1979 baseball season.

The Wildcats won more than 30 games for the ninth consecutive full season and for the 35th time across 45 seasons in the Pac-10/12 era. They tallied at least 20 conference wins for just the third time since 1990.

All eight of the Wildcats’ all-conference honorees are first-time recipients of the award. This year also marks the most Arizona pitchers to earn first-team honors since 2008 and what is believed to be the first time all three of the Wildcats’ primary starting pitchers landed on the list.

Candiotti, a senior transfer in his first year with Arizona, made 14 regular-season starts for the Wildcats and posted a 6-3 record with a 3.27 ERA and a team-leading 87 strikeouts. The tall right-hander logged multiple complete games, the first coming on March 29 against UCLA and the second on May 4 against Stanford. Candiotti’s first career shutout against the Cardinal earned him Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week honors for May 6. The son of former Major League Baseball great Tom Candiotti went five or more innings in all but one of his 14 starts and notched five quality starts. 

Summerhill, who earned his first taste of extended playing time this year as a sophomore, finished the regular season leading the team with a .332 batting average and a .406 on-base percentage. The Chicago native ranked second on the team with 13 multi-RBI games and third on the team with 19 multi-hit performances. Summerhill delivered the Wildcats’ game-winning hit on the final day of the regular season, sealing a Pac-12 regular-season championship for Arizona.

Walty, the Pac-12 leader with eight wins, anchored the Wildcat rotation for nearly the entire season. As Arizona’s Sunday starter, Walty made 14 appearances with 12 starts and posted a team-best 2.76 ERA that also ranked second in the Pac-12 among qualified pitchers in the regular season. The right-hander made seven starts that lasted six-plus innings, including an 8 1/3-inning effort on the final day of the regular season that helped the Wildcats clinch the conference title.

White, a Tucson native, finished the regular season ranked third in the Pac-12 with 60 RBIs, while his 17 home runs were tied for fourth-most in the league. White paced the Wildcats with 21 multi-hit games and 18 multi-RBI performances. The true sophomore has already slugged 27 home runs in his Arizona career, just four shy of breaking into the program’s all-time top 10. White also picked up Pac-12 preseason all-conference recognition, a place on the Bobby Bragan National Collegiate Slugger Award watch list, and the Frisco Classic All-Tournament team.

Kent, a southpaw hailing from Illinois, was tabbed with the Friday night starter role from the jump and delivered reliable performances all season. Kent made 14 starts and went 3-3 with a 3.56 ERA while striking out 82. Following a dominant six-inning, eight-strikeout effort on opening night against then No. 23 Northeastern, he earned Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week honors. A dozen times the left-hander worked five or more innings for Arizona, with eight quality starts scattered among them.

Caulfield, enjoyed a bounce-back year for the Wildcats, hitting a career-high .312 with 36 runs, the most doubles on the team (19), and 40 RBI. Caulfield ranked second on the team in batting average, walks, and on-base percentage while hitting primarily in the two and three holes of the Arizona lineup. The third-year infielder tied for the team lead with 21 multi-hit games and ranked third on the squad with 11 multi-RBI performances.

Corona, a senior from San Luis Obispo, Calif., who came to Arizona from Pima College, clubbed 20 extra-base hits and drove in 29 RBI for the Wildcats in his final collegiate regular season. Corona’s combination of speed and power led to a Pac-12 leading seven triples from the outfielder. In addition to his performance at the plate he contributed strong defense in right field, posting a .990 fielding percentage with a pair of outfield assists.

Hintz, a two-way player but primarily a right-handed reliever, rounds out the Wildcats nominees. The Illinois native notched 24 relief appearances for Arizona and went 3-1 with two saves and a 3.58 ERA. In addition to his pitching duties, Hintz was pressed into service as the Wildcats’ center fielder in the final regular season series of the year during which he picked up his only hit of the season in Arizona’s title-clinching comeback victory.

Arizona is back in action this week at the last Pac-12 Baseball Tournament in Scottsdale. The Wildcats open their postseason run against Washington Huskies on Wednesday with a first pitch set for 7:00 p.m. at Scottsdale Stadium and on the Pac-12 Networks.

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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.