Gillespie, Gunderson receive American Athletic Conference honours

Ontario Nationals alum Blake Gillespie (Arva, Ont.) has been named American Athletic Conference Pitcher of the Year for his outstanding season with the Charlotte 49ers. Photo: Charlotte 49ers

May 19, 2025

Official Charlotte 49ers Baseball News Release

IRVING, Texas – Charlotte Baseball's Blake Gillespie was named the Pitcher of the Year and Newcomer Pitcher of the Year in the American Athletic Conference, the league announced Monday afternoon.

Gillespie was also a unanimous First Team All-Conference selection at the pitching position, one of three unanimous selections on the First Team, along with relief pitcher Robert Orloski and outfielder Mason Lytle – both of UTSA. Gillespie is joined on the All-Conference First Team by Cody Gunderson and Dawson Bryce, while Logan Poteet was a Second Team All-Conference selection.

Blake Gillespie • Pitcher of the Year • Newcomer Pitcher of the Year • First Team All-Conference

Gillespie (Arva, Ont.) has been the ace of Charlotte's staff and is having one of the best seasons on the mound in recent program history. He's entering the postseason with a 2.53 ERA and 118 strikeouts in 92 1/3 innings of work – leading the conference in all three categories. His ERA is the 24th-best in the country while he holds the fourth-most strikeouts among all Division I pitchers and is currently fifth on Charlotte's single-season list. With only 18 walks allowed all season, Gillespie ranks eighth in the country with a 6.56 strikeout-to-walk ratio and ninth nationally with a 0.90 WHIP. His K/9 rate of 11.50 is fifth in the conference and 37th nationally and would rank as the sixth-best in a single season in program history. He has thrown three complete games this year with two being shutouts, including tossing the second no-hitter in program history on March 7 in a 5-0 win over James Madison in his first Friday and series-opening start of the season.

Just looking at conference games, Gillespie turned in one of the best seasons the American Athletic Conference has ever seen in league play. He has a 1.39 ERA with 84 strikeouts in 64 2/3 innings pitched and a .176 opponent batting average in AAC games, leading the league in all four categories. Only two pitchers have ended the year with a lower ERA in conference games since the league's inception in 2014 and both were done in the first two years, making Gillespie the lowest ERA in conference games in the last nine years. No pitcher has thrown more innings in conference games in the history of The American than Gillespie while his 84 Ks are the second-most in AAC action behind and his .176 opponent average is the third-best the conference has seen.

Gillespie is the first yearly award winner for the 49ers since Austin Knight was named Player and Newcomer of the Year in Conference USA in 2021. He's the first Niner hurler to earn Pitcher of the Year honours since All-American Andrew Smith took home the award in the Atlantic 10 in 2011, and joins consensus First Team All-American Adam Mills (A-10, 2007) and John Maine (CUSA, 2001) as the fourth Pitcher of the Year recipient in program history.

Cody Gunderson (St. Malo, Man.) • First Team All-Conference First Baseman

Gunderson earned First Team All-Conference honours after hitting .331 with a 1.010 OPS in his first season with the 49ers. His OPS ranks sixth in the conference thanks to the seventh-best on base percentage (.462) and ninth in slugging (.548) at the end of the regular season. He reached base in each of the first 37 games of the year to start the season, outside of two games he missed from an illness, for the longest on-base streak on the team this year by 14 games and leads the team with two separate 14-game hitting streaks. Gunderson started 35 games at first and 10 behind the dish for the Niners before having his season cut short from an injury this year and finished second on the team with 345 putouts while helping Charlotte post the third-best fielding percentage in the country heading into the postseason.

Dawson Bryce • First Team All-Conference Third Baseman

Bryce leads the Niners in most offensive categories, including batting average (.339), runs scored (47), hits (75), doubles (16), home runs (13), RBIs (50), and slugging percentage (.597) to earn a First Team All-Conference nod. Bryce holds the second-best slugging percentage in The American and the ninth-best average and OPS while ranking second in hits, fifth in home runs and doubles, and sixth in RBIs and runs scored. Just like Gillespie, Bryce has taken it to another level in conference games, leading the league in batting average (.387), slugging percentage (.755), and OPS (1.181) while tying with the Player of the Year, Mason Lytle, for the most hits against conference foes. Bryce has turned it up even higher in the last three weeks, batting .451 with 23 hits and 17 RBIs in the month of May while winning back-to-back Player of the Week honours to finish out the season to become just the second position player in program history to Player of the Week awards in consecutive weeks.

Logan Poteet • Second Team All-Conference Catcher

Poteet picked up a Second Team All-Conference nod after establishing himself as one of the top defensive catchers in the conference and the country. He threw out 22 batters trying to steal a base this season to tie the 49ers' single-season program record and lead the conference while entering the postseason tied for the second-most in the country this year. Of the 22, 10 came in conference games, making Poteet the only catcher in The American to throw out double-digit runners trying to steal in conference action. He helped Charlotte allow the third-fewest stolen bases in the conference this season and the third-best caught stealing percentage at 35.3%. The team's 24 runners thrown out are tied for the ninth-most in a single season in program history while the 44 stolen bases allowed are the seventh-fewest the Niners have given up. He didn't allow a single passed ball and helped his pitching staff only throw 20 wild pitches this year, the fewest in the conference and the second-fewest in a single season in program history.

Charlotte ended the regular season with a 35-20 overall record and an 18-9 mark in American Athletic Conference action to earn the No. 2 seed in the 2025 American Athletic Conference Championships, presented by Regions. The Niners open their run in the tournament against No. 7 seed Wichita State on Tuesday (May 20) at 4 p.m. from BayCare Ballpark in Clearwater, Florida.