Four T-Birds receive all-conference honors

On Monday, the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference (KJCCC) released its annual baseball awards, with four Cloud County Community College players receiving all-conference recognition.
Sophomore first baseman Kade Wallace and redshirt freshman Ramon Vingochea were each named to the second team All-KJCCC West, while sophomores Jackson Dietel and Grant Schmidt were awarded honorable mention.
Wallace led the T-Birds in hitting for the 2019 season, batting at a .328 clip with 13 extra-base hits, 41 runs scored and 30 runs driven in.
He finished the season on a six-game hitting streak, which included going 6-for-19 with his first career grand slam and nine RBI in Cloud County's five postseason games.
Vingochea, who cemented himself as Cloud County's starting second baseman this season, batted .305 hitting primarily out of the number nine spot in the order. He finished the spring with one home run, nine doubles, 42 runs scored and 28 driven in. He also recorded 15 stolen bases in 18 total attempts, tying him with freshman Alex Rice for the third most on the team.
The redshirt freshman excelled at making contact as Vingochea walked 16 times versus 13 strikeouts in his 190 at-bats, which is tied for the third fewest strikeouts by a Cloud County player in a single season (minimum of 78 at-bats) in program history.
Dietel shined his sophomore season on the mound and in the batter's box for the T-Birds en route to earning all-conference honorable mention.
As a pitcher, the left-hander finished with a team-high eight wins (8-2 overall) and notched his first two career saves this season. He struck out 74 and walked just 15 in his team-high 84 innings pitched while posting the best earned run average in the T-Birds' rotation at 3.86.
Dietel was especially dominating in big moments for Cloud County. He finished the season with four straight wins in games he started, as well as one save. Two of those wins came in postseason starts, where he limited opponents to two earned runs in 12 innings pitched.
The Spring, Texas native also proved to be a dangerous bat in 2019 as he hit .298 and was second on the team in home runs (8) and runs driven in (42). Dietel, who was named to the Region VI/Central District All-Tournament Team after batting 5-for-18 with seven runs scored and five RBI, also finished 2019 with a .994 fielding percentage after committing just one error in 178 total chances.
As for Schmidt, the power hitting right-hander out of Hastings, Nebraska finished his sophomore season as Cloud County's leader in home runs (13) and in RBI (51) while batting at a .257 clip. His 13 home runs were tied for the seventh most in the KJCCC and ranks as the third most for a single season in program history.
Of Schmidt's 45 hits this season, 29 of them went for extra-bases as he tied Dietel for the team-lead in doubles with 12 and lead all T-Birds with four triples.
Defensively, Schmidt was near flawless as the primarily left-fielder as he did not commit an error in his 55 games played, finishing with 63 putouts and two outfield assists.