One Oregon State Beaver will not be competing for college baseball’s most coveted individual honor.
There will be two.
Shortstop Aiva Arquette and outfielder Gavin Turley have been included to the preseason watch list for the Golden Spikes Award, which is presented each year to the outstanding amateur baseball player in the US.
The 55-player roster was revealed on Friday and includes six players who made the preseason watch list and four players who were semifinalists for the award the previous season.
A year ago, Travis Bazzana, the first overall pick in the 2024 MLB draft and a former second baseman for OSU, was a candidate.
However, two athletes from Oregon State, one of 11 teams with multiple nominations on the watch list, will be vying for the prized award this year.
As the top-ranked high school recruit in Oregon State’s history, Turley, a 6-foot-1 junior, has been a force in the lineup ever since. Turley has hit.289, slugged.618 and amassed 33 home runs, 22 doubles, and 120 RBIs in his first two seasons in college.
Last season, Turley hit 19 home runs and drove in 74 runs, which were the third and fifth most in school history, respectively. Additionally, he is on track to break Oregon State’s career marks for RBIs (179) and home runs (45).
Arquette, meanwhile, transferred from Washington last summer and will make his debut at Oregon State next week. The Pac-12 all-conference team and the all-defensive team selected Arquette, a 6-5 shortstop who is expected to be among the top picks in the 2025 MLB draft, after he hit.325 with 12 home runs, 14 doubles, and 36 RBIs in the previous season.
The Oregon State coaches are so confident in the Kailua, Hawaii-born youngster that they speculate that he might be the Beavers’ second consecutive No. 1 pick in the MLB draft. As expected, Baseball America, Perfect Game, and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association have selected Arquette as a preseason All-American.
Arquette and Turley will attempt to join Adley Rutschman (2019), who was selected as the first overall choice in the 2019 NBA Draft and made it to the major leagues, as the second player in school history to win the Golden Spikes Award.
Cooper Hjerpe and Bazzana, both left-handed pitchers for the Beavers, have been finalists for the award since Rutschman’s victory.
Throughout the season, the Golden Spikes Advisory Board will rotate the watch list, giving players a chance to put themselves up for an award. A midseason watch list will be made public by the board on April 3. The semifinalists will be announced on May 18, and the finalists and winner will be announced in June.
Online voting at GoldenSpikesAward.com allows fans to participate in the award.
On Friday, February 14, in Surprise, Arizona, the Beavers play their first game of the season versus Xavier.
503-294-5183 | @BlazerFreeman|@freemanjoe.bsky.social| Joe Freeman|[email protected]| Get the newest news and the best stories by subscribing to The Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts.
