Kentucky Baseball: JaVon Shelby Earns Preseason All-American Honors

With the 2016 college basketball season inching closer, the preseason honors are starting to roll in.

Kentucky Wildcats junior third baseman JaVon Shelby has been named a third-team preseason All-American by Louisville Slugger. This marks the fourth straight season UK has had a preseason All-American.

A native of Lexington, Ky., Shelby is coming off a dynamic 2015 season as UK's second baseman, earning first-team All-SEC honors. The 6-foot-3, 200-pound right-handed hitter, finished with a .312 average (63-for-202) with nine home runs and 44 RBI as a sophomore in 2015.

Shelby had a .525 slugging percentage and ranked ninth in the SEC with a .442 on-base percentage. Defensively, Shelby led all SEC second baseman for the second consecutive year in assists. As a freshman in 2014, Shelby earned SEC All-Freshman Team honors, hitting .250 with four homers and 21 RBI.

JaVon comes from a baseball family that includes his broth and former Wildcat John Shelby, who hits 33 home runs with 131 RBI from 2004-06 in Lexington. John earned All-SEC honors in 2006 after leading UK from a last-place finish in 2005 to the first SEC Championship in school history.

The Shelby lineage at Kentucky may continue for several more years as the youngest of the Shelby brothers, Jaren, signed his National Letter of Intent with UK in November and is regarded as one of the top 50 high school players available for the 2016 MLB Draft.