Harry Witwer-Dukes

CoSIDA Academic All-America® Release

The College of Wooster's Harry Witwer-Dukes was voted to the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America® Team, which was announced by the national organization on Tuesday. The Fighting Scots' senior infielder was a third-team honoree.

"Harry's worthy of the honor," said head coach Barry Craddock. "He's always been one of our stronger students and always cares about the academic side of things. He's helped many players through tutoring and advising through the team structure. He's a guy we're going to miss not only as a player, but also as a member of our community."

Witwer-Dukes is Wooster's second Academic All-American® of the 2019-20 academic year, joining football standout Eric Kraus. It's the first time Wooster's had multiple Academic All-Americans® since the 2014-15 academic year, and Witwer-Dukes is the first baseball player to earn this prestigious honor since Jarrod Mancine in 2014. Baseball student-athletes have earned five of the College's 51 all-time Academic All-America® honors.

Witwer-Dukes reaped the rewards of his hard work and dedication to Wooster's tradition-rich program during the 2019 season. That's when the Monmouth, Oregon native earned first-team All-America honors from the American Baseball Coaches Association and second-team laurels from D3baseball.com. In his first full season as a starter, Witwer-Dukes hit .390 (64-for-164), while helping the program to an unprecedented fourth straight North Coast Athletic Conference title. His team-leading 56 RBI ranked 13th nationally, and the first-team all-conference selection added 45 runs and 25 extra-base hits to his 2019 stat total.

For his career, Witwer-Dukes hit .387 (98-for-253) with 76 RBI, 73 runs, 21 doubles, and 11 homers. Those numbers received a big boost at last year's Wooster Regional, where he went 11-for-19 with 11 RBI, six runs, and four extra-base hits over a five-game stretch.

The communication studies major explored the digital media framing of concussions in the National Football League for his Independent Study (I.S.) project. Other key experiences for Witwer-Dukes during his time at the College included serving as a presentation coach in APEX, the College's center for Advising, Planning, and Experiential Learning, and holding the role of teaching assistant in first-year seminar courses.