South Carolina sophomore Carlos Cortes was named to the Preseason All-SEC second team while the University of South Carolina was picked to finish fourth in the East Division in the SEC Preseason poll, the conference announced Thursday.
Cortes, who also was named to the Baseball America Preseason All-America third team, played in 50 games with 43 starts and hit .286 with a team-high 12 home runs and 41 RBI last season. Cortes also had a .565 slugging percentage to go along with a .368 on-base percentage. He was named to the SEC All-Freshman team and earned SEC All-Tournament team honors after hitting three home runs, driving in eight, scoring five runs and walking eight times in the five tournament games.