Posted: Wednesday, June 15, 2011 11:41 am

Nine Ohio Valley Con-ference athletes were selected in the 2011 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft last week.
The first round was held last Monday, with rounds 2-30 being held last Tuesday, and the draft concluded on Wednesday with rounds 31-50.
Overall, seven of the 10 OVC baseball-playing institutions had at least one player selected and Austin Peay led the way with three selections.
The nine selections for the OVC came a year after the league had a record 13 selections in 2010.
Southeast Missouri State closer Logan Mahon was the first OVC player selected, going in the 22nd round to the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday.
He was followed by Eastern Illinois outfielder Zach Borenstein (23rd round to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim), SIUE pitcher Spencer Patton (24th round to the Kansas City Royals), Tennessee Tech outfielder Chad Oberacker (25th round to the Oakland Athletics) and Austin Peay pitcher Jack Snodgrass (27th round to the San Francisco Giants).
Four additional players were selected on Wednesday as Austin Peay pitcher and OVC Pitcher of the Year Jeremy Dobbs was selected in the 33rd round by the Seattle Mariners.
Later in that round UT Martin infielder Trey Karlen was picked by the Washington Nationals (No. 997 overall) while Dobbs’s teammate Ryne Harper was selected in the 37th round by the Atlanta Braves and Jacksonville State’s Ben Waldrip concluded the OVC picks by being taken in the 40th round by Kansas City Royals.
Mahon became only the fourth Southeast player selected in the first 25 rounds of the draft and first since 2003.
A native of St. Elmo, Ill., Mahon earned second-team All-OVC honors as a relief pitcher this season. He went 5-4 with a team-high 2.54 ERA and eight saves in 21 appearances. Mahon also ranked second on the team with 53 strikeouts in 46 innings.
Borenstein became the fifth Panther selected in the MLB Draft in the last three years.
The Buffalo Grove, Ill., native paced the EIU offense this season as he posted a team-best .349 batting average, 68 hits and 38 runs.
Patton enjoyed one of the finest seasons in school history in 2011.
He finished 9-3 with a team-best 2.55 earned run average.
Patton also became the fourth pitcher in school history to record at least 100 strikeouts in a season, fanning 109 hitters, the second-most in a single season in SIUE history.
Oberacker capped off this season hitting at a .325 mark (65-of-200) after starting all 52 contests on the Golden Eagle schedule.
He racked up 22 extra-base hits, including 10 home runs to tie the team high and put him at fifth place in conference standings in that category.
Snodgrass finished his senior campaign with a 4-6 record despite a team-best 3.50 earned run average.
Snodgrass allowed just two runs (0.61 ERA) in Austin Peay’s postseason run and struck out 14 batters in 142⁄3 innings.
He struck out a career-high 11 strikeouts in its victory against Jacksonville State in the Ohio Valley Conference tournament.
Dobbs, who was also a first-team All-OVC selection in addition to being named Pitcher of the Year, led the Govs with a 9-3 record this season while posting a 3.59 ERA.
He also recorded 87 strikeouts and limited opponents to a .258 batting average.
Karlen hit .297 on the year for the Skyhawks, while also leading the team in runs scored (55), doubles (19), home runs (nine), RBI (46) and stolen bases (21). Karlen, a .326 career hitter at UT Martin, is the only player in program history to have 20 or more homers and 50 or more stolen bases.
Harper, of Clarksville, was grabbed with the 1136th overall pick by the Atlanta Braves.
He became the Govs closer after the season’s first three weeks and led the team with eight saves while posting a 6-2 record and 4.62 ERA. Harper notched 59 strikeouts in 48.2 innings pitched this season and held opponents to a .289 batting average.
Waldrip, who was drafted after his sophomore season last year in the 42nd round by the Atlanta Braves, was the fifth pick of the 40th round and the 1,206th player taken in the draft.
Waldrip was named to the All-Ohio Valley Conference second-team last month after helping the Gamecocks post the second-most wins in the school’s Division I history and their seventh appearance over the last eight years in the OVC Baseball Championship game.
The Medford, Mass., native led the Gamecocks with 10 home runs and was second on the team with 45 RBI.
He finished the season with a .344 batting average, was tied for the team lead with a .547 slugging percentage and finished with 12 multiple-RBI games.