College Baseball Daily continues our countdown to the start of the 2012 College Baseball season by checking in on the Top 100 Players in the country. We will be providing one player per day until we reach number 1.
We continue the countdown today at number 52 with Washington State redshirt junior first baseman Taylor Ard. He is from Vancouver, Washington where he attended Prairie High School. He was named first team all-league, all-region and all-state as a junior and senior.
Ard spent his freshman season at Mount Hood Community College where he led the team in hitting at .490 with 12 homers and 49 RBI. He was named MVP of the NWAACC.
He spent the summer of 2009 in the West Coast League with the Corvallis Knights. He played in 42 games (39 starts) hitting .359 with five homers and 40 RBI.
After missing the entire 2010 college season at Mt. Hood with an injury, he was selected in the 33rd round by the Florida Marlins. He ended up spending the summer in the Cape Cod Baseball League with the Brewster Whitecaps to try to improve his draft stock. Ard ended up playing in 41 games hitting .267 with a homer and 15 RBI.
Taylor then transferred to Washington State for the 2011 season. He had an outstanding season with the Cougars hitting .337 while leading the conference homers (10) and RBI (55). He was selected again in the 2011 draft this time by the Boston Red Sox in the 25th round but decided to return to Washington State for another season.
You can check out the rest of our Top 100 by clicking here.
