Poway Grad is Big Ten hitting leader

As a sophomore at Indiana University, Poway grad Alex Dickerson is making a big impact with his bat in the Big Ten Conference.

This past Saturday, Dickerson, a 2008 Poway grad, helped the Hoosiers get to their third consecutive Big Ten Tourney appearance and clinched the title as the conference’s leader in all three “triple crown” categories. He finished the season with a .415 batting average, 23 home runs and 73 RBIs.

He narrowly beat teammate (and Torrey Pines grad) Jerrud Sabourin for the batting title. Sabourin ended the season with a .410 batting average.

In a phone interview, the lefty said his team is young, and that he saw an opportunity to step up after the team lost several players to the Major League Baseball draft and graduation after his freshman year, in which he was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year.

When asked what may have contributed to his success on the diamond, Dickerson credited the collective batting strength of his team.

“It sort of just happened,” Dickerson said. “The players around me have been batting so well that I can’t be pitched around. I worked really hard on my swing and it’s been working out.”

He added that another year of maturing as a baseball player has allowed him to see pitches a lot better and to know when to take his shots. It also helped that he’s put on about 20 pounds since his high school playing days.

Still, he said, earning conference honors has been surprising.

“I did over-achieve in my goals,” Dickerson said. The ultimate goal? To play professionally, said Dickerson, adding that he might enter the draft next year. In 2008 he was drafted by the Washington Nationals, but he decided he was better off playing collegiately.

Indiana teammate and fellow Poway grad Drew Leininger, a left-handed pitcher who had the third-best ERA in the country earlier this season before he suffered an MCL injury, said he’s not surprised by Dickerson’s accomplishments.

“He’s a great athlete and he has a swing that’s about the best in the country,” said Leininger, who is also Dickerson’s college roommate. “He’s such a smart hitter, and he makes adjustments well. You can’t fool him more than once.”

Leininger said about the only thing that’s shocking about Dickerson is that he wasn’t recruited by schools in California.

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Posted by unestidstwern on May 27 2010. Filed under Archive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry