BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Southeastern Conference announced its 2024 SEC baseball awards Monday with Ike Irish earning First Team All-SEC honors and Cade Belyeu being named to the Freshman All-SEC Team.
Irish earned a spot as the designated hitter/utility player and becomes Auburn's second position player to earn first-team honors since 2011, joining Sonny DiChiara (2022) on the short list. He was previously named to the Golden Spikes Award Midseason Watch List and Buster Posey Award Watch List.
A sophomore from Hudsonville, Michigan, Irish led the Tigers in average (.319) and RBI (59) and tied for the team lead in home runs (14). His 59 RBI were tied for the eighth most in the conference and tied for the fourth most by an Auburn player since 2010. Along with his production at the plate, Irish tied for third in the league with nine runners caught stealing and added an outfield assist. He started 24 games at catcher, 11 games as the designated hitter and 10 games in right field.
Irish became the fourth fastest player in program history to record his 100th career hit earlier this season, doing so in his 68th game played with a first-inning homer against UConn on Mar. 2. He trails only Scott Pratt (61 games), Todd Faulkner (63 games) and Tim Hudson (66 games) on the list.
After coming off the bench for the first month and a half of the season, Belyeu ended up hitting .284 in 38 games and 26 starts in his first season on The Plains. Fifteen of his 27 hits were for extra-bases, leading to his team-best .632 slugging percentage, and he tied for third on the team with eight home runs in fewer than 100 at-bats.
Six of Belyeu's eight home runs came in SEC play, good for the third most on the team. He hit five home runs in a six-game span at the end of the season and homered in four straight games at Missouri and vs. Alabama, becoming the first Auburn player since 2008 to hit a homer in four straight league games. The local product reached safely in 24 of the last 25 games played, including a team-best 19 straight games from Mar. 30-May 10, and led the team with a .437 on-base percentage during the span.
A complete list of the 2024 SEC baseball awards can be found here.
