2025 NCBWA All-American Teams (PDF)
SALISBURY, N.C. – After a historic freshman season, Kolton Casson became the program’s first eighth All-American in Carson-Newman’s NCAA era, by being picked a second team All-American by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) on Wednesday afternoon.
Casson is the program’s 25th All-American across both the NAIA and NCAA eras. The freshman right-hander is the eighth individual in the school’s NCAA era to earn All-American honors, the fifth pitcher and first since Brayden Coe in 2021. Across both eras, Casson is the eighth arm to be named an All-American. The right-hander becomes the fourth player coached by Tom Griffin to be lauded an All-American for his efforts on the field.
NCBWA second team All-American honors add to a laundry list of accolades for the freshman. Casson was a two-time SAC pitcher of the week and TSWA pitcher of the week during the season. He earned All-SAC First team honors and was named the conference’s freshman and pitcher of the year in the same season, becoming the first ever individual in the South Atlantic Conference to garner two individual awards in one season. He was also named a NCBWA and D2CCA first team all-region pitcher and D2CCA’s Southeast Region Pitcher of the Year.
As a freshman, the Benton, Tenn. native had a 2.35 earned run average in 95.2 innings of work. His ERA is the sixth lowest in a season in program history and second lowest by a C-N starting pitcher. Those 95.2 innings are the sixth-most in a single-season in program history. The innings came across 15 starts, tied for the fifth-most in one season in C-N baseball history. In his 15 starts, Casson was 13-1, including wins in his first 11 starts of his collegiate career. The 13 wins are tied for the most wins in a single season in school history and are the most in DII this year.
Casson had six complete games as a rookie, tied for the second-most in program history. He went the distance in three straight outings, with two of those performances being 12 and 13 strikeout efforts, one of which came against #7 Lenoir-Rhyne on April 12. Casson had six straight starts in which he allowed one run or less. In the month of March, he made five starts and won them all while also posting a 0.84 ERA. 12 of his 15 starts were quality starts (6IP with 3 ER or less). He posted at least six strikeouts in eight of his 15 outings.
Despite letting a lead-off batter reach at a .371 clip on the year, opponents hit .199 with runners on base, .187 with two outs and .212 as a right-handed batter. He did not yield more than eight hits in any game on the year and pitched at least seven innings in more than half of his starts.