UNC Baseball: Horvath Earns National Player of the Week Honors

At the beginning of the month, North Carolina Tar Heels junior third baseman Mac Horvath was named ACC Player of the Week. The conference player of the week honor was the first of Horvath’s career. His special week was deserving of more than that, though, and soon after the conference honor, Horvath earned three National Player of the Week awards:

The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) released its Dick Howser Trophy National Player of the Week awards, and named Horvath as the National Hitter of the Week.

Perfect Game named Horvath their Rawlings Player of the Week.

D1Baseball.com also named Horvath their Player of the Week.

In addition to these awards, Baseball America added Horvath to their Week 11 standouts list.

Here are the stats during four games against UNCW and Virginia Tech that earned Horvath these honors:

• .563 batting average
• 19 RBIs
• Five home runs, including a grand slam and three three-run homers
• Seven runs scored

Against UNCW, Horvath drove in eight runs. Horvath is the first Tar Heel to do so since Marshall Hubbard against St. Francis in 2004. Those 19 RBIs are a program record for the most RBIs over four consecutive games.

Heading into the weekend series against NC State, Horvath has a .321 batting average and leads the team in runs (57), hits (61), doubles (19), home runs (20), RBIs (58), total bases (142), slugging percentage (.747), OPS (1.171), and stolen bases (21). His 20-20 season is the program’s second, after Vance Honeycutt accomplished the same last year.

Horvath leads the ACC in stolen bases and ranks in the top ten in home runs (2nd), runs (T-3rd), RBIs (4th), slugging percentage (6th), OPS (6th), and doubles (6th).

Let’s see how he does in the final home conference series of the season.