SLIPPERY ROCK — Matt Adams' numbers would be good if he was a slow-pitch softball player.

But he's a catcher for the Slippery Rock University baseball team, and his numbers are ridiculous.

Adams led NCAA Division II with a .495 batting average this spring. He ranked fifth in the nation with a .566 on-base percentage, eighth with an .853 slugging percentage and 24 doubles, 10th with 91 hits and 12th with 157 total bases.

After posting those lofty stats, he was named Daktronics Inc. National Player of the Year by vote of Division II sports information directors.

"It got to the point where every time he stepped to the plate, we figured he was going to do something positive," SRU coach Jeff Messer said.

Messer had to go back to Craig White's 1989 season to find a Rock baseball player who put up numbers like Adams did this year.

"They're probably 1 and 2. In fact, I know they are," Messer said.

The coach also knows no other SRU player has attracted the major league draft interest that Adams has.

"He's probably gotten more interest than every other player we've had here combined," Messer said.

Adams is flying to St. Louis today to work out for the Cardinals. He is headed to New York to work out for the Yankees and Mets, then to Philadelphia for an appointment with the Phillies during the first week of June.

Karns City graduate and former catcher Dan DeCola was the SRU player drafted the highest. He went to Minnesota in the 14th round in 2000.

"When teams fly you in like this, it usually means you're going in the first 10 rounds. But you never really know," Messer said.

Adams knows he has to keep his feet on the ground over the next two weeks. Baseball's amateur draft is June 9 to 11.

"It's going to be tough," he admitted. "But I have to remain focused. I'm going to be in some big stadiums and that's exciting. But I'll have to remember why I'm there: to show what I can do."

Along with his .495 batting average, Adams hit 14 home runs, drove in 64 runs and scored 64 runs. He ranked among the top 50 in the country in all of those categories.

He became the first SRU player to earn National Player of the Year honors.

"And he'll probably be the last," Messer said. "That kind of stuff just doesn't happen."

"It's not something I was looking at when the season started," Adams said. "But as the year went on and my numbers kept going up, I thought I might be considered.

"But you never think you're gonna win something like that."

Then again, catchers don't hit .495 every day.

"(Catchers) usually don't hit for average because they're beat up all the time and they don't run well," Messer said. "What Matt did this year was crazy."

Adams' current career batting average of .454 at The Rock is 51 points higher than Sal Agostinelli's SRU career record of .403. Adams' career slugging percentage of .749 is more than 100 points higher than John Sansa's school career mark of .640.

Agostinelli and Samsa both played at The Rock from 1981-83.

"I took my hitting very seriously this year," Adams said. "I know it's my strong point."

Adams tied his own school record of 24 doubles this year and knotted Joe Neidrick's school mark of 91 hits in a campaign. He broke Brad Lowe's single-season school slugging percentage record of .807, set in 1998.

"Matt did what he did with a lot of teams pitching around him," Messer said. "He left the strike zone to hit pitches, but he never stopped hitting."