NEW ULM — Former Martin Luther College student-athlete Jake Ziel was named to the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) Baseball All-Decade Team on Thursday.

Ziel’s four-year career as both a pitcher and outfielder was good enough to make him one of the 15 members voted onto the team based on performance during the 2009-18 seasons.

This isn’t the first conference honor for Ziel, who was named co-Pitcher of the Year in the UMAC in 2014 and was twice named First Team All-UMAC (2013, 14). He also earned American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) All-Region Third Team in 2014.

Ziel finished his career as MLC’s all-time leader with 205 career strikeouts. The talented left-hander also ranks second in the MLC career record book in wins (14), ERA (3.95) and innings pitched (200.2). In the single-season record book, Ziel holds two of the top five seasons in program history in both strikeouts and ERA.

When he wasn’t pitching, Ziel became one of the team’s top hitters and started in right field. He finished his career fourth in program history with 117 hits, and led the team in batting average in both 2017 (.378) and 2018 (.381).

The UMAC is celebrating 10 seasons as an NCAA Division III member this season, and as part of that celebration will be releasing All-Decade team for each sport throughout the course of the 2018-19 sports season. Individuals and teams were nominated by their schools, and voted on for the teams by a special committee of coaches and administrators in the conference.