New Mexico’s Karsen Waslefsky has made the cut as a semifinalist for the Brooks Wallace Award annually given to college baseball’s top shortstop, the College Baseball Foundation announced on Wednesday.
Waslefsky is one of 50 shortstops to be named as a semifinalist for the award, which honors the nation's top shortstop and will be presented by the College Baseball Foundation later this year. It is named for former Texas Tech shortstop Brooks Wallace, who played for the Red Raiders from 1977 to 1980. Wallace died of leukemia at the age of 27.
“Narrowing our list to even 50 is a difficult task to take on as there are so many deserving shortstops at midseason,“ said Larry Wallace, co-chair of the Brooks Wallace Award. “All these kids are piling up big offensive numbers with power. But just as important are the defensive skills and how well they field their position.”
In his second year at UNM, Waslefsky has started 38 of 40 possible games at shortstop for the Lobos this season and is batting .288 on the season with 35 runs, 30 RBI, seven doubles, five homers and a triple. He’s fielding at a .976 clip with 118 assists and 44 putouts on 166 opportunities and has stolen 10 bases on 11 attempts.
Previous winners of the award are Kurt Suzuki, C, Cal State Fullerton, 2004; Alex Gordon, 3B, Nebraska, 2005; Brad Lincoln, SP/DH, Houston, 2006; David Price, SP, Vanderbilt, 2007; Buster Posey, C, Florida State, 2008; Ben Orloff, SS, UC Irvine, 2009; Jedd Gyorko, SS, West Virginia, 2010; Brad Miller, SS, Clemson, 2011; Zach Vincej, SS, Pepperdine, 2012; Alex Bregman, SS, LSU, 2013; Trea Turner, SS, NC State, 2014; Dansby Swanson, SS, Vanderbilt, 2015; Sheldon Neuse, SS, Oklahoma, 2016; Logan Warmoth, SS, North Carolina, 2017; Cadyn Grenier, SS, Oregon State, 2018; Grae Kessinger, SS, Ole Miss, 2019; Cal Conley, SS, Texas Tech, 2021; Brooks Lee, SS, Cal Poly, 2022; Matt Shaw, SS, Maryland 2023; Griff O’Ferrall, SS, Virginia, 2024 and Roch Cholowsky, SS, UCLA 2025.
The CBF annually presents the Brooks Wallace Award (Nation’s Most Outstanding Shortstop), the National Pitcher of the Year Award, the John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year Award, the Skip Bertman Coach of the Year Award, the George H.W. Bush Distinguished Alumnus Award, and the Wayne Graham Award for Teaching Excellence.