Lapierre Receives All-America Honors

WESTFIELD, Mass. – Westfield State senior starting pitcher Ryan Lapierre (Westfield, Mass.) was named to the ABCA/Rawlings Division III All-America Fourth Team as selected by members of the ABCA All-America committee.

Lapierre is the first Owls baseball All-America selection since 2019 when Anthony Crowley '19 was named an All-America honorable mention by D3baseball.com. He was the only player selected to All-American status from the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference.

The senior righthander continues to rack up yearly honors as he was previously named to the ABCA/Rawlings All-Region First Team and D3baseball.com All-Region Second Team. He was named the MASCAC Pitcher of the Year as he earned a spot on the All-Conference First Team for the second time in as many seasons as an Owl.

Lapierre, who transferred to Westfield after his sophomore year at Hartford University after the school transitioned from Division I to Division III, owned a 9-0 record in ten starts, serving as the highest winning percentage in a single season in program history.

He led the conference with a 1.63 earned-run average and nine wins while also finishing second in the league with 72 strikeouts in 66.1 innings pitched.

The Owls went 10-0 in games started by Lapierre as he tossed six or more innings in each of his ten outings, all of which were quality starts as he allowed three or fewer runs in each start. He closed the season with his longest outing of the year in a MASCAC Tournament elimination game, firing eight, two-run innings while striking out nine as part of a 4-2 first round win over Mass. Maritime.

For his career with the Owls, Lapierre started in 20 games, posting a 13-4 record with a 2.77 ERA across 130.0 innings pitched, striking out 143 batters. He reached the double-digit strikeout mark in four games, most recently in a 2-1 win over Framingham this season where he fanned 11 over 7.1 innings, giving up just one run.

Over the past two seasons, Lapierre has been named the MASCAC Pitcher of the Week on five different occasions with Westfield as a team registering a 16-4 mark in the 20 games started by Lapierre.

Lapierre also was a major award winner at the Westfield State Athletic Department awards night as he was the honoree of Male Athlete of the Year for all of athletics.

Westfield State finished the season with an overall record of 27-16, including a 13-8 mark in the MASCAC where the team earned the fourth seed in the conference tournament. The Owls defeated Mass. Maritime, 4-2 behind the strong outing from Lapierre, then advanced into the MASCAC Semifinals as one of three teams remaining in the conference before falling to Salem State, 2-1 to end the season.