Rutgers-Camden Athletics

Joe Brooks (Blackwood, NJ/Gloucester Catholic)
 
It was a great week in a great season for freshman designated hitter Joe Brooks, who was named to the New Jersey Athletic Conference First Team in baseball and was honored as the NJAC’s Rookie of the Year. He became the Scarlet Raptors’ first NJAC Baseball Rookie of the Year since Brian Murphy in 2001. Brooks also earned five of the eight NJAC Rookie of the Week honors awarded since the Raptors’ late start to their baseball season, including his latest one May 5. He entered the week with a team-leading .429 batting average and went 9-for-19 (.474) in five games to raise his average to .434. He was particularly effective in the Raptors’ four NJAC playoff games, hitting .533 (8-for-15), including three-hit games against both Montclair State and Kean. While Rutgers-Camden waits to hear about a possible NCAA tournament berth, Brooks currently ranks first in the NJAC in batting average (.434) and on-base percentage (.536), is second in runs (45), tied for second in hits (63), tied for third in sacrifices (8), is fifth in walks (23), sixth in both slugging (.497) and HBP (10) and ninth in total bases (72). He is tied for first on the team in multiple-hit games this season (17) and the longest hitting streak (11), and also compiled hitting streaks of eight and nine games. He has hit safely in 35 of his 41 games, including a current five-game streak. His eight sacrifices are one shy of the program’s season record and he also is approaching the program’s single-season marks for runs (51) and hits (70).