NMMI Sports Press
Three Bronco baseball players were named to the Western Junior College Athletic Conference team.
Freshman pitcher Megumi Fukuda and redshirt freshman second baseman Edwin Martinez Pagani earned first-team honors while redshirt sophomore shortstop Rudy Solis was named honorable mention.
Pagani was also named to the NJCAA Division I All-Region V team.
New Mexico Military Institute finished 24-19 overall after finishing third at the conference tourney.
The Broncos hit .317 as a team with 75 home runs and 300 RBIs.
NMMI finished tied for first in school history in home runs with the 2016 squad that played 16 more games.
This year's team finished at the top of the school record list, placing third in batting average, sixth in RBIs, eighth in runs and first in slugging percentage.
Megumi Fukuda | Pitcher | Freshman | Takarazuka, Japan
Fukuda finished the season with a 9-2 record and a 3.70 ERA with 80 strikeouts.
In 58.1 innings pitched, he averaged 12.34 strikeouts per game. His season-high 13 strikeouts came against Clarendon during the conference tourney on May 7, which bested his 10 strikeouts tallied during a 12-2 win over Western Texas College on April 30.
Batters only managed to compile a .231 average off of Fukuda.
Fukuda earned WJCAC Player of the Week honors for the week of April 25-May 1.
He led the conference in wins while he finished ranked eighth in strikeouts.
Fukuda had the second-best single season win total in program history while he finished seventh-best in ERA, fourth in strikeouts and third in strikeouts per inning.
Edwin Martinez Pagani | Second baseman | RS-Freshman | Ponce, Puerto Rico
In 145 at bats, Pagani recorded a .393 average with 57 hits, 10 home runs and 38 RBIs along with an on-base percentage of .491.
Pagani's average was ranked third-best on the team. He also scored 43 times on the season.
He finished with 17 multi-hit games. In six of the 17 games, Pagani tallied three hits.
On two occasions Pagani hit two home runs in a game against Clarendon on April 24 and Western Texas College on April 30.
He drove in a season-high four RBIs twice.
In conference, he ranked 11th with 17 doubles and seventh with a slugging percentage of .759.
Pagani was also named a WJCAC Player of the Week for April 25-May 1.
He tied for the ninth-best single season mark for doubles and home runs on the school record list. Pagani also finishes with the fifth-best single season mark for slugging percentage.
Pagani finishes his career with a .403 average which ranks fourth-best in team history and his slugging percentage of .718 is third-best.
Rudy Solis | Shortstop | RS-Sophomore | El Paso, Texas
Solis led the Broncos with a .426 batting average. He also had a team-high 58 hits and 21 doubles while he drove in 29 runs.
On the base paths, he stole a team-high eight bases. Solis also tallied a .647 slugging percentage along with a .506 on-base percentage.
Solis tallied 16 multi-hit games. He recorded a game-high three hits on six occasions.
During a 17-16 win over Frank Phillips College, he drove in a season-high five runs as he finished 3 for 5.
Solis ranked third in the conference in doubles and fourth in batting average.
His career average of .409 is second-best in team history while he ranked fifth in doubles.