Dallas Baptist’s Jake Bennett named 2026 Collegiate Baseball Player of Year by SABR Dallas-Fort Worth chapter
DALLAS – Dallas Baptist University’s Jake Bennett has been chosen as the recipient of the 33rd Howard Green SABR Metroplex Collegiate Player of the Year Award, while Brendan Vela of Texas Wesleyan University was selected as the 15th annual SABR Metroplex Carroll Beringer Award College Division Players of the Year by SABR’s Ernie Banks-Bobby Bragan DFW Chapter.
The prestigious college baseball awards honor the memory of Green, the local SABR chapter’s longtime president, and Beringer, a former major-league pitching coach who was a great supporter of college baseball in the area.
Bennett is Dallas Baptist’s record 18th honoree since the award originated in 1993. He set a school season record (minimum 150 at-bats) for slugging percentage at .776 and paced Conference USA hitters with 19 home runs. The dual position slugger from Louisville, Kentucky, was a third-team National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association All-America, ABCA All-Central Region first-teamer, and first team All-Conference USA. He hit .346 in 43 contests, drove in 53 runs, had 121 total bases, posted a 1.251 OPS, achieved an impressive .475 on-base percentage, and played errorless ball in the field.
Bennett had a 43-game streak of reaching base from the final eight contests in 2025 through his first 35 games in 2026. He was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the eighth round of the 2026 MLB First-Year Player Draft in June.
Vela had a season to remember for Texas Wesleyan. The senior from Fresno, California, led the Sooner Athletic Conference with a .453 batting average and was first team All-SAC for the second time while receiving votes for regional and national laurels. He is the seventh player from the Rams program to capture one of these awards and the school’s fourth winner of the Beringer Award since 2016. The 2026 SAC Player of the Year started and played in 54 games for head coach Bobby Garza, helping the Rams win the conference’s regular-season championship and runner-up in the SAC tournament. The senior slugger helped lead the Rams to a school-record 22 Sooner Athletic Conference wins.
These record-setting diamond stars join such earlier SABR Howard Green and Carroll Beringer award winners as Scott Malone and Luken Baker of TCU; Hunter Pence and Michael Choice of UT Arlington; Darick Hall, Collin Poche, and Drew Holder of DBU; Elvin Rodriguez of Northwood; Conner and Casey Combs of East Texas Baptist; and two-time recipients of the Beringer Awards – ETBU’s Sayers Collins and A.J. Liu of UT Dallas.
“Jake Bennett and Brandon Vela had exceptional seasons for two great teams in 2026,” said Banks-Bragan SABR Chapter President Paul Rogers. “They have posted tremendous statistical numbers, but their value as teammates on their squads was just as important. They both are very deserving of these SABR DFW collegiate awards.”
Previous winners of the Howard Green SABR Metroplex College Baseball Player of the Year are: Scott Malone, TCU, 1993; Jason Parsons, DBU, 1994; Johnny Issom, Texas Wesleyan, 1995; Karl Chatman, DBU, 1996; Brandon Harper, DBU, 1997; Royce Huffman, TCU, 1998; Cody Sundbeck, DBU, 1999; (co) Jon Browder, DBU; Pat Hannon, Texas Wesleyan, 2000; Mike Hall, Texas Wesleyan, 2001; Terry Trofholz, TCU, 2002; Clayton Jerome, TCU, 2003; Hunter Pence, UT Arlington, 2004; Lance Broadway, TCU, 2005; Drew Holder, DBU, 2006; Sam Demel, TCU, 2007; Evan Bigley, DBU, 2008; Matt Otteman, UT Arlington, 2009; (co) Michael Choice, Texas-Arlington; Matt Purke, TCU, 2010; Jason Krizan, Dallas Baptist, 2011; Boomer Collins, Dallas Baptist, 2012; Duncan McAlpine, Dallas Baptist, 2013; (co) Brandon Finnegan, Preston Morrison, TCU, 2014; Brandon Koch, Dallas Baptist, 2015; (co) Darick Hall, Dallas Baptist; Luken Baker, TCU, 2016; Austin Listi, Dallas Baptist, 2017; Devlin Granberg, Dallas Baptist, 2018; Jake Guenther, TCU, 2019; no award in 2020 due to COVID-19 shortened season; Jackson Glenn, DBU, 2021; Tommy Sacco, TCU, 2022; Brayden Taylor, TCU, 2023; Ryan Johnson, DBU, 2024; Nate Humphreys, DBU, 2025.
Carroll Beringer Award: Chase Brown, UT Dallas, 2012; Elvin Rodriguez, Northwood, 2013; Jake Howeth, Texas Wesleyan, 2014; Brandon George, UT Dallas, 2015; Conner Combs, East Texas Baptist, 2016; Luis Roman, Texas Wesleyan, 2017; Kiki Menendez, Texas Wesleyan, 2018; Casey Combs, East Texas Baptist, 2019; A.J. Liu, UT Dallas, 2020 and ‘21; Joseph Barfield, Texas Wesleyan, 2022; Sayers Collins, East Texas Baptist University, 2023; Sayers Collins, East Texas Baptist and Dane Jones, LeTourneau, 2024; Trent McCown, UT Dallas, 2025.
For more information, please contact Bo Carter at bcarter@footballfoundation.com or (214) 418-6132.
Originally published: July 28, 2026. Last Updated: July 27, 2026.