Westmont center fielder Bryce Morison earned further national recognition as he was selected to the 2019 ABCA-Rawlings-NAIA Baseball Gold Glove Team.
The team is voted on by the NAIA Baseball Coaches Association All-America Committee.
Morison, who two weeks ago was named an NAIA Second Team All-American, becomes just the fourth Warrior to earn NAIA Gold Glove honors. The Santa Barbara High alum is the first Westmont player to be an All-American and an NAIA Gold Glove recipient in the same season.
“It’s just a highlight to an incredible season and an awesome career,” said head coach Robert Ruiz. “I couldn’t think of anybody more deserving, with his work ethic and the type of person he is. It’s fun when people like that get rewarded.”
Morison recorded a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage while tallying 133 putouts and five assists on the season.
“His outfield assists were really high. He threw guys out consistently,” said Ruiz. “He made some game changing plays in the gaps and we have a pretty big outfield, especially in that left-center gap. With his ability to cover that, he won a lot of games for us this year with his glove.”
Throughout the spring, Morison made numerous eye-catching plays in center field, but one play in particular stood out to Ruiz.
“He had a big inning-ending outfield assist against The Master’s in that four-game series that we swept, that pretty much saved our season,” said Ruiz. “There were several others, but that is one that I remember because that weekend was so important for us in sweeping that series and is probably what gave us the chance to be in the position we were to host a regional and do some things that we did late in the year. He obviously did it with the bat that weekend too, so it gets overshadowed, but he hardly sat an inning this season because he was too valuable to take off the field.”