Bruins Shortstop Named Finalist for Brooks Wallace Award

UCLA Bruins sophomore shortstop Roch Cholowsky has been named a finalist for the Brooks Wallace Award by the College Baseball Foundation.

The Brooks Wallace award recognizes the nation's best college baseball shortstop, and is named after former Texas Tech shortstop Brooks Wallace.

Wallace played with the Red Raiders from 1977-80 and died of leukimia at the age of 27. Recipients of the award are selected for a multitude of factors and not just how they performed on both sides of the ball. The award considers a player's prowess as a leader, in academia and in their community.

Notable past recipients of the award include Grae Kessinger, an Ole Miss shortstop who received the award in 2019, and last year's winnner, Griff O'Ferrall, who won the award with the University of Virginia.

Cholowsky had a year more than worthy od being named a finalist for this prestigious award. Going into Super Regionals with a .370 batting average, 23 home runs and 72 RBIs, the sophomore was also named Big Ten Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year.

His stellar play boosted the Bruins through the Los Angeles Regional and he was named to the All-Tournament Team along with five other Bruins. Cholowsky's season also saw him slug for .761, score 78 runs and hit 19 doubles to lead UCLA to its first supers appearance since 2019.

The No. 15 seeded Bruins cruised their way through regional bracket play, going 3-0 and defeating Fresno State, Arizona State and UC Irvine by a combined 24 runs. Their postseason opener against the Bulldogs was a 19-4 statement win.

UCLA takes on the UTSA Roadrunners, who upset the No. 2 team in the nation, Texas, in the Austion Regional. Not only did the Roadrunners upset them once, they beat them twice. UTSA is on quite the Cinderella story and will be appearing it its first super regionals in program history.

In a stroke of luck, UTSA's upset over the Longhorns means the Bruins will host the Super Regional series in Westwood at Jackie Robinson Stadium. Game one of the best-of-three series is on Saturday, June 7, at 4 p.m. PT on ESPNU.