2017 Official Tino Martinez Award Release
BAY CITY, Mich. -- The finalists for the 2017 Tino Martinez Award have been determined and the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) earned two of the 12 nominees in Northwood's David Vinsky and Ohio Dominican's Justin Childers.
Northwood freshman David Vinsky became one of the top offensive performers in the country in his first season at Northwood. He finished the regular season with a .444 batting average to go along with a .654 slugging percentage. Vinsky has set single season records for Northwood in hits, extra base hits, doubles, total bases, and runs batted in. The freshman for Northwood finished the incredible season batting .449 with 109 total hits.
Vinsky was a crucial piece to the most successful season in Northwood baseball history that included the school's first ever GLIAC regular season championship, GLIAC tournament title, a school record for wins, a top ten national ranking, and a #1 seed in the Midwest Region.
Ohio Dominican's Justin Childers was named the D2CCA and NCBWA Midwest Region Player of the Year. Also the GLIAC Player of the Year and a two-time GLIAC Player of the Week, Childers batted .451 with 14 homers, 17 doubles, five triples, 60 RBIs, 62 runs scored and 18 stolen bases in 48 games. Through games played as of May 14, Childers ranks second nationally in slugging percentage (.846) and third in batting average while his .526 on-base percentage is ninth.
Childers closed the season with a 14 game hitting streak and had two or more hits in 12 of those games, hitting .609 with six homers, 25 RBIs and 14 walks in that stretch. On the season, he had 28 multi-hit games and 19 multi-RBI games.
The award honors DII baseball's most outstanding player and is named after the former University of Tampa Spartan, Olympian and MLB All-Star, Tino Martinez. Martinez is a former University of Tampa Spartan, United States Olympian, first round draft pick and MLB All-Star. While playing for the Spartans Martinez was a three-time All-American and still holds a number of UT records including career home runs (54), career slugging percentage (.736), career on base percentage (.494), single season batting average (.452) and single season slugging percentage (.957).