ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia first baseman/outfielder Charlie Condon has been named a finalist for the Bobby Bragan National Collegiate Slugger Award (BBNCSA) presented by SR Bats.
Along with Condon, the other finalists for the award are Dylan Crews (LSU), Nolan Schanuel (FAU) and JJ Wetherholt (West Virginia). The award, created by the Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation in Texas, is based on performance at the plate, academics and personal integrity. Fifty-one Division I players were nominated for the award and eight players were added to the midseason watch list. The winner of the BBNCSA will be announced later this month and honored at a gala in the fall.
Condon, a 6-6, 215-pound native of Marietta, Ga., recently was named the Freshman Hitter of the Year by Collegiate Baseball newspaper along with being a second team All-American. Additionally, Condon’s national accolades this season include being a semifinalist for the Golden Spikes Award and Dick Howser Trophy. He is an Honor Roll student majoring in finance.
He started all 56 games this season for the Bulldogs, leading the team in batting average (.386), home runs (25), runs (61) and RBI (67). He earned SEC Freshman of the Year honors in a vote of the league’s head coaches. He set the SEC freshman home run record and was selected second team All-SEC and Freshman All-SEC. He has been invited to the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team (CNT) summer training camp in Cary, N.C. to compete for a spot on the 26-man roster. He is scheduled to play in the Cape Cod Summer League for the Falmouth (Mass.) Commodores as they open their season Saturday.
“You can't go wrong with three upperclassmen that hit over .430 for the season and were the top three hitters in Division I plus a redshirt freshman who hit .386 with 25 homers,” said Tracy Taylor, Executive Director of the BBNCSA and the Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation. “This year's finalists include the Player of The Year from the SEC (Crews), the Big 12 (Wetherholt) and Conference USA (Schanuel) and Condon was the SEC Freshman Of the Year.
"But performance at the plate is not the entire story of these excellent student-athletes as they are leaders in the classroom and the community. For example, Wetherholt carries an extremely high GPA as a finance major and Crews is a member of the SEC Community Service Team. Schanuel and Condon both have business related majors and sport excellent GPAs. The BBNCSA Selection Committee did another outstanding job getting the list down to four finalists this year."
The BBNCSA originally started out in 2017 as an honor going to the top college hitter in Texas. In 2019, the BBNCSA expanded becoming a regional award covering Division I programs in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma. The BBNCSA became a national award in 2020; however, no winner was announced due to the COVID-19 virus which cut the 2020 college baseball season short. The previous winners include Hunter Hargrove (Texas Tech, 2017), Devlin Granberg (Dallas Baptist, 2018), Josh Jung (Texas Tech, 2019), Connor Norby (East Carolina, 2021) and Ivan Melendez (Texas, 2022).
