Athlete of the Week: Julian Boyd

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - Colorado Mesa’s Julian Boyd took home the American Baseball Coaches Association NCAA Division II Player of the Year award, the fourth time a Maverick has won the award.

“I actually read somebody’s list of All-Americans and their National Player of the Year and I wasn’t on it. So I had already had my mind made up that I wasn’t even in the consideration for this award. So when this poll came out, I was shocked, but I was really happy,” Boyd said.

The other two Mavericks to take the award home, Austin Kaiser did in 2014 and Haydn McGeary won it in back-to-back seasons in 2021 and 2022.

“I woke up and got some congratulations texts... was just on top of the world as soon as I’d seen those messages,” Boyd said.

Boyd became just the second Maverick player in program history to post a 10 home run 20, double and 30 stolen base season, the only other was Kaiser during his Player of the Year season in 2014.

Boyd says he hopes by adding another big award to the Maverick program, it will help create more of a talent pipeline to CMU, similarly to how Boyd says he wound up putting on a Maverick uniform.

“I got recruited in August from when I was scrolling on my phone from about July to August. All I saw was Haydn McGeary, Hayden McGeary. So seeing that I’m saying okay, they can produce guys that are successful. When I read Coach Hanks’ resume and saw the kind of hitter he was, I said okay obviously he knows what he’s doing, and the proof is in the pudding because the awards are there,” Boyd said.

Boyd said the next chapter is his baseball career will be pursuing a career in Major League Baseball.

Copyright 2023 KKCO. All rights reserved.