Two Yellow Jackets found themselves on national mid-season award watch lists, the College Baseball Foundation announced today. Senior Mason Patel was named to the Pitcher of the Year watch list while junior Kyle Lodise was placed on the Brooks Wallace Award watch list, awarded to the nation’s top shortstop.

Mason Patel enjoyed one of the best first halves of a season by any Yellow Jacket in program history, becoming the first GT pitcher to win each of his first seven appearances despite not starting a single game. He pitched the first 22.2 innings of the season before allowing his first run, the longest scoreless streak to begin a year by any Tech pitcher this century. The Knoxville, Tenn native has played a role in the final decision of all 12 of his appearances, posting an 8-1 record with a team-high three saves.

He leads all of Division I with eight wins, he leads the ACC (5th in DI) in WHIP (0.78) and is 12th in the nation in ERA (1.87). Patel has posted the longest outing of any Tech pitcher this season, pitching the final 6.2 innings of GT’s 9-5 victory at Notre Dame (March 22) and became the first Tech pitcher to record multiple saves in a single series, this year, when he slammed the door on both Friday (April 11) and Sunday (April 13) in Tech’s sweep over California.

Patel is one of seven ACC pitchers on the 54-player watch list.

Kyle Lodise earned his place on the Brooks Wallace Award watch list after taking Division I by storm in the first half do the 2025 season. He has missed the last five games with an injury, but prior to that, he was leading all of DI in total bases (111), tied for the most doubles any Power 4 player (tied with Drew Burress with 17), ranked 14th in DI with 13 home runs and was second in the Power 4 in slugging percentage (.860).

The Brunswick, Ga. native still leads the ACC in extra base hits (32) and has scored at least one run in 87.5% of his games played this year (28 of 32). He has reached base in every game he has played in this season with an on-base streak that extends over a calendar year (since April 6, 2024 when he was playing at DII Augusta University). At the time of his injury, Lodise was leading or tied for the team lead, in at bats (129), runs (49), hits (51), triples (2), HR (13), RBI (44), slugging (.860) on-base (.500) and assists (72).

The award honors the nation’s top shortstop and will be presented by the College Baseball Foundation later this year. It is named for former Texas Tech shortstop Brooks Wallace, who played for the Red Raiders from 1977 to 1980. Wallace died of leukemia at the age of 27.