Complete GSC All-Decade Spring Release [PDF]

All-Decade GSC West Division Team [PDF]

Birmingham, Ala.—Delta State University continued its dominance of Gulf South Conference baseball, as the Statesmen placed 12 on the GSC's All-Decade Team, including West Division Player of the Decade Jud Thigpen and Coach of the Decade Mike Kinnison.  DSU and Southern Arkansas tied for the most players selected to the All-Decade Team. 

The Statesmen dominated play in the GSC from 2001-2009 and that dominance continued on Tuesday as outfielder Jud Thigpen was named the West Division's Player of the Decade and head coach Mike Kinnison earned Coach of the Decade honors.

Thigpen was the 2004 ABCA/Rawlings National Position Player of the Year, capping a brilliant career that included back-to-back GSC Championships and First Team All-America honors (2003-04). Thigpen finished as the GSC's all-time leader in runs scored and was a key cog in the Statesmen's 2004 National Championship team.

Kinnison continued the tradition of great Delta State coaches, guiding the Statesmen to four GSC Championships (2000, 03-04, 08), five Division II Championship appearances (2000-02, 04-05) and the 2004 National Championship. The former All-America shortstop for DSU in 1978 was named the 2004 National Coach of the Year and has four GSC Coach of the Year awards due in large part to eight West Division titles in 10 seasons.

Craig Newton (C, 2002-05), Andy Dillard (3B, 2002-03), Devin Goodwin (SS, 2006-09), Brad Lightsey (SP, 2001-04), Rusty Rayborn (SP, 2005-08) and Dusty Hughes (RP, 2001-03) joined Thigpen (OF, 2001-04) and Kinnison on the All-Decade First Team.

Clay Sartain (2B, 2006-09) and Justin Smith (SP, 2005-08) were named to the Second Team, while Eli Whiteside (C, 1999-2001) and Edwin Maysonet (SS/2B, 2002-03) garnered Honorable Mention honors.

A complete list of all Spring honorees is available at the link above.  Players could only be nominated for the All-Decade Team if they competed in at least two seasons during the decade and were also named to the All-GSC First Team at least once. Each squad was broken up into First and Second Teams. Players and Coaches of the Decade were selected and Honorable Mentions were also recognized in special circumstances (for example, those student-athletes that competed in just one season and were an All-GSC First Team member during the past decade).

The Conference also recognized the best Teams of the Decade using a formula based on how a school's team finished in the All-Sports Trophy standings the past 10 years. Harding University Sports Information Director Scott Goode spearheaded the computation of each school's team-point-total based on the simple formula of All-Sports points earned divided by All-Sports points possible during the decade. The resulting score is the percentage of All-Sports points earned during the decade per sport. The formula included only the seasons that each school sponsored the respective sport. A score of 100 indicates that the team earned the maximum number of points (i.e. - won the conference championship) in each season in the decade.