First baseman Andrew Vaughn has won USA Baseball's Golden Spikes Award as the top amateur baseball player, the first University of California player to earn the honor.
Vaughn, a Santa Rosa native, earned the 2018 Pac-12 Player of the Year award, hitting .402 in his sophomore season with 14 doubles, a school-recording tying 23 homers and 63 RBIs.
Vaughn said in a statement, "I'm incredibly humbled and honored to receive an award like the Golden Spikes. I'm proud to represent Cal and thankful for all the support I've gotten from my coaches, family and friends."
In a statement, Cal head coach Mike Neu said, "We couldn't be prouder of the way in which Andrew represents our team and the University of California. It's an incredibly exciting day for Cal and Cal Baseball."
He is the eighth player from the conference to win the award after Bob Horner (1978), Terry Francona (1980), Oddibe McDowell (1984), Mike Kelly (1991), Mark Prior (2001), Tim Lincecum (2006) and Trevor Bauer (2011).
The other finalists for the award, announced Thursday, were Texas infielder Kody Clemens, Auburn right-hander Casey Mize and Florida right-hander Brady Singer.
Sports
About 200 people cast ballots among national baseball media, select professional baseball personnel, previous winners and select USA Baseball staff. Those votes counted for 95 percent of the total, with fan balloting accounting for the remainder.
Bay City News contributed to this report.
