ST. MARY’S CITY — Ian Walters of Galena, a junior catcher at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, excelled on the baseball diamond and in the classroom this spring.
He batted .300, fourth best for the Division III Seahawks, while also boasting a grade point average of at least 3.2 (on a 4.0 scale) to qualify for the conference’s All-Academic Team.
He is majoring in economics.
Walters is a 2021 graduate of Kent County High School, where he was the outstanding sportsman in his class as well as a Maryland Scholar and member of the National Honor Society.
At St. Mary’s, Walters has appeared in 74 games over three seasons — all starts. He is a career .296 hitter and boasts a fielding percentage of .956.
This spring, Walters totaled 38 bases, which included six doubles, one triple and one home run.
He drove in 15 runs and scored 18.
He committed only seven errors in 121 chances for a fielding percentage of .942.
The Seahawks finished 7-8 in the United East Conference, and 12-20 overall.
COVID-19 robbed Walters of being a triple threat in high school in both the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years.
He lettered all four years in soccer (and was the team MVP as a senior) and two years in swimming, but played only two full seasons of baseball due to the pandemic.
As a sophomore in 2019, on the 9-9 squad of mostly juniors and seniors, Walters earned all-star recognition as a utility player. He batted .278, had a fielding percentage of .884 and led the team with five stolen bases in six attempts.
The 2020 season was cancelled, and the Trojans played only four games in 2021 because of a COVID quarantine.
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The United East Conference is comprised of 17 full-member institutions and five associate members, located in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
St. Mary’s led the conference with 121 student-athletes on the spring All-Academic Team, including 18 baseball players.
St. Mary’s also collected its second straight United East Presidents’ Cup, which is determined by a scoring system that rewards a school for success during both regular-season and postseason competition.
The conference sponsors 20 championships.
The Seahawks have the potential to compete in 16; they do not sponsor men’s golf, softball or men’s volleyball, while the field hockey program competed in the Atlantic East Conference in 2023-24.
For the first time since joining the United East three years ago, every St. Mary’s team eligible for United East action advanced to the postseason.
St. Mary’s hoisted United East tournament championship trophies in women’s cross country, men’s soccer, men’s lacrosse and women’s lacrosse and claimed regular-season crowns in men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse and men’s tennis.
Additionally, the Seahawks’ men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams and women’s outdoor track and field team placed second at the United East Championships, while the baseball and men’s tennis teams made their way to the Volt Division final.
St. Mary’s was No. 1 in the Presidents’ Cup standings for the entire year, taking the lead after the completion of the fall season and remaining there through the winter and spring seasons.