BOWLING GREEN, Ky. -- In the 10th round of the 2016 MLB Draft, the St. Louis Cardinals selected former WKU third baseman Danny Hudzina with the 316th overall pick on Friday.
Hudzina became the 19th Hilltopper to be selected since the 2009 season and 54th overall WKU player to be drafted. Spanning back to 2009, the Tops have had a player taken in the draft every year except for the 2012 MLB Draft and had multiple selections in four of those seasons. He joined former WKU players Anderson Miller and Andrew Edwards as active Hilltoppers in the professional ranks.
He is the third player in WKU history to be drafted by the Cardinals organization, joining Steve Stemle (1998) and Don Durham (1970). Former Hilltopper Marty Mason also signed for the Cardinals back in 1980. When he signs his deal with St. Louis, Hudzina will become the 106th Hilltopper player to sign a professional contract and the 23rd to do so since 2008.
This past season, Hudzina closed out his career on The Hill with one of the best campaigns in recent memory by a Hilltopper, finishing with a .408 batting average on 89 hits and 18 doubles. He became the 14th WKU player in the last 56 years to lead WKU in batting average and hold an average over .400. Hudzina was also the first WKU player to hit .400 for a season since Josh Patton hit .419 in 1997 and first C-USA player since Chad Zurcher of Memphis did so in 2011.
With the .408 average, Hudzina moved into the Top 10 in school history in multiple single-season categories as his batting average was tied for the eighth-best mark in a single season at WKU with Jim Atkinson (1978). His 89 hits tied the 2009 MLB Draft selection Matt Rice (2010) for the 10th-most in a single season on The Hill.
Hudzina, who spent a majority of the season either leading or in the Top 3 in the NCAA in hits, collected a hit in 47 of 54 contest, while also extending a hitting streak to 29 games at the start of the year. He reached base safely in every fixture but two in 2016 en route to opening up a 50-game reached-base streak that spanned over most of the year.
