NCBWA National Weekly Awards (Apr. 6)

DALLAS – The second Academy of Art baseball no-hitter ever thrown in 15 years of program history has earned a first for ART U and sophomore left-hander Brian Kraft, as he was picked as the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) National Pitcher of the Week for his performance against Concordia on April 1 in an 8-1 victory. The award is for games played from March 27-April 2.

"This is an award that reflects directly upon Brian's hard work and perseverance," said ART U Head Coach Dan McDermott. "In combination with his high expectations coming off the summertime Pitcher of the Year award in the MINK league for the Clarinda A's, and his love for his teammates, he has put an extreme amount of pressure on himself. The decision to discontinue our baseball program has been difficult on us all, but particularly upon Brian. Lately he has worked upon simplifying his approach, and it was nice to see a positive result last Saturday."

Kraft becomes the Urban Knights' first pitcher to ever earn a national weekly honor, doing so after he held the Concordia lineup without a hit for seven innings and setting a new career-high with 10 strikeouts, which included punching out four of the final five batters to secure his first victory of the season. That performances helps him join Ben Kaser as the only two Urban Knights to throw a no-hitter in ART U history, with Kaser doing so in another seven inning game against Simpson on Feb. 17, 2018 in a 1-0 shutout win, though Kraft is the first to do so against an NCAA Division II opponent and had double the strikeouts (10 to five). The lone earned run that scored was a result of four walks, two wild pitches and a sacrifice fly. 

Over the past two days Kraft collected other weekly awards, as Monday he was named the PacWest Pitcher of the Week before earning the NCBWA West Region Pitcher of the Week on Tuesday. It is the third consecutive year that ART U has earned three total PacWest weekly awards with two being PacWest Pitcher of the Week honors, and it is the fifth consecutive year earning at least one PacWest weekly honor (excluding shortened 2020 season; multiple honors in all but 2019). Additionally, he is the first Urban Knight to earn the NCBWA West Region Pitcher of the Week award since Collin Carriger earned the award on March 1, 2022, and ART U has had at least one such award in each of the last three years (two in 2021; Carriger on May 3 and Matthew Sanchez on Mar. 10).