Charlotte Ace Blake Gillespie Nails A Third All-American Honor
Blake Gillespie notched his third All-America honor this season when Baseball America named him a Second Team All-American on Friday morning (June 20).
Gillespie became Charlotte Baseball’s 13th All-American in program history earlier this month when Perfect Game named him as a Third Team All-American before NCBWA (National Collegiate Baseball Writers’ Association) bestowed the same honor on him the next day. Gillespie is the sixth All-American in program history to earn multiple citations in the same season and joins unanimous First Team selection Adam Mills in 2007 as the only CLT pitchers to do so. He also joins Mills as the only two Charlotte pitchers to earn a Second or First Team All-America award.
The 2025 American Athletic Conference Pitcher of the Year and Newcomer Pitcher of the Year, Gillespie turned in one of the best seasons the American Athletic Conference has seen on the mound. He posted a 2.42 ERA with 131 strikeouts in 100.1 innings pitched this year, tied for the third-most strikeouts any pitcher in conference history has had and the third-most in the country this year heading into the start of NCAA Regionals. Just in conference games, Gillespie finished with a 1.39 ERA, 84 strikeouts, 64.2 innings pitched, and a .176 opponent batting average to lead the conference in both categories while posting the lowest ERA in AAC play in the last nine years.
Gillespie’s 131 strikeouts are the fourth-most in a single season in program history and the most since unanimous First Team All-American Adam Mills fanned 141 in 2007. His 11.75 K/9 rate is the fifth-best in a single season while his opponent batting average of .193 ranks fourth. Only issuing 19 walks this year, Gillespie held a 1.70 K/BB ratio for the ninth-best in a single season in program history. Gillespie had three complete games this season to become the 36th arm in program history to go the distance three times in the same season but just the seventh this century and the first since Corey Roberts in 2011, while his two complete game shutouts put him tied for the third-most in a single season in program history.
A unanimous First Team All-Conference selection, Gillespie tossed the second no-hitter in program history this season with 11 strikeouts and only one walk issued against James Madison on March 7 in his first Friday start of the season. Gillespie fanned more batters than that twice, collecting a pair of 13-strikeout games, including punching out 13 batters in the American Athletic Conference Championships against Wichita State to tie the conference record for most strikeouts by a single pitcher in a tournament game. His 13-K game in Clearwater propelled him from sixth to fourth place on Charlotte’s single-season strikeout list and made him the single-season strikeout leader for Canadians in American collegiate baseball.
Gillespie is the fourth pitcher to earn All-America honors in program history and the first hurler since Andrew Smith in 2011 to do so. He’s the Niners’ first All-American since six-time selection Cam Fisher in 2023 and the fourth All-American in the last five years under head coach Robert Woodard.
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