BATON ROUGE - Ahead of the team's first College World Series since 2017, the Tigers' Paul Skenes was named the 2023 Dick Howser Trophy winner, awarded to the year's best college baseball player. 

Skenes joins the 1998 trophy winner Eddy Furniss to be the second Tiger to claim the nation's top collegiate baseball award. 

“Paul Skenes certainly is deserving of the 2023 Dick Howser Trophy,” Howser Trophy chairman David Feaster said. “He has established himself as head and shoulders above any pitcher in NCAA Division I this season as well as a team leader and community service champion. His tremendous talent also has helped LSU make the NCAA World Series field for the 19th time overall and the first time since 2017.”

Skenes, a junior from Lake Forest, California, leads the SEC in wins (12), strikeouts (188), earned run average (1.77), innings pitched (107.0), and opponent batting average (.170) He is ranked No. 2 on LSU’s all-time single-season strikeouts list, trailing only Ben McDonald, who recorded 202 strikeouts in 1989.

College Baseball’s Best Player@Paul_Skenes is the 2023 Dick Howser Trophy Winner pic.twitter.com/yacWvmiE9h

— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) June 15, 2023

Skenes was honored on the LSU Baseball Twitter with his own hype video.