Shawn Steuerer, a longtime Wellington resident and rising senior at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, had another statistically strong year as a third baseman for the university’s baseball team.
As a team, Johns Hopkins went 29-9 during the regular season, which included a conference-best record of 16-2 in the NCAA Division III Centennial Conference. As a result of having the conference’s best record in regular-season play, Johns Hopkins hosted the Centennial Conference tournament in early May on its home field in Baltimore — Babb Field at Stromberg Stadium.
Johns Hopkins won all three conference tournament games — on May 2 against Haverford, on May 4 against McDaniel and on May 6 against Dickinson — to capture the Centennial Conference tournament title. Hopkins won all three of those games by a combined score of 54-19. Steuerer, who bats third in the lineup, was 4-for-11 in the tournament with six RBIs and five runs scored. Of his four hits, one was a home run.
The conference tournament victory propelled Johns Hopkins into the NCAA Division III regional play. Hopkins hosted those regional games, and the Blue Jays won all three: 12-1 against St. Joseph’s of Long Island on May 17, followed by a pair of weekend wins (20-8 and 19-4) against 20th-ranked Arcadia on May 18-19. During those three regional games, Steuerer continued his torrid stretch of hitting, going 8-for-13, scored nine runs and drove in six. Two of his eight hits were home runs.
Those three regional wins advanced the Blue Jays to the super regional round, where they needed to win two out of three games against their next opponent. Johns Hopkins was assigned to travel to Massachusetts to play then-second-ranked Endicott, which had defeated Johns Hopkins 14-8 during the regular season in March.
Johns Hopkins lost two straight games to Endicott — 7-5 in extra innings and 5-2 — to be eliminated from this year’s NCAA Division III tournament. In both games, Hopkins had the early lead.
This past season, Steuerer led the team in five offensive categories: batting average (.363), hits (57), runs scored (57), total bases (122) and sacrifice flies (7). He was the second on the team in home runs (17), RBIs (52), on-base percentage (.462) and slugging percentage (.777). He also had 12 doubles and one triple in 45 games.
On May 29, Steuerer was recognized for his stellar play when he was named to the D3baseball.com All-America Third Team. Last year, he grabbed Second Team All-America honors. Steuerer is just the second player in Johns Hopkins history to twice earn All-America honors from D3baseball.com and the first to be selected in consecutive years.
Steuerer continues his assault on the baseball record book at Johns Hopkins. With one season remaining in his collegiate baseball career, Steuerer has collected 202 hits, 149 runs scored, 149 RBIs, 42 home runs and 37 doubles. His career batting average is .388, and he’s already the only player in school history with 200 hits and 40 home runs.
Johns Hopkins head baseball coach Bob Babb has strong words of praise for Steuerer.
“Shawn is a great kid with a great attitude,” said Babb, who just finished his 45th year as the head baseball coach at Johns Hopkins. “His desire to win is second to none. He works hard and is a true team player. We are lucky to have him at Johns Hopkins, as he has NCAA Division I arm strength and power. He will most likely graduate as the program leader in home runs, hits and doubles. He is probably one of the three best players to ever play baseball at Johns Hopkins.”
While it was disappointing losing in the super regionals, which is one round before the Division III World Series, Steuerer enjoyed the baseball season.
“It was a good season and was lots of fun,” said Steuerer, who made a complete recovery from shoulder surgery the previous season. “We had a rough start to the season, but we bounced back and played well in our conference games. It was tough losing to Endicott this year, but we have a strong team coming back next year.”
In the classroom, Steuerer is majoring in economics with a GPA of 3.72. He is spending the summer working as an intern for Oppenheimer & Company.
This year, the Johns Hopkins baseball team had five student-athletes earn CSC Academic All-District honors, including Steuerer. It was the second straight year that Steuerer received such academic recognition.
