Northern Iowa junior Adam Boeve has been named the Missouri Valley Conference baseball player of the year. The Central Lyon High School product leads the Panthers in hitting with a three-76 average, leads in homers with 17 and has stolen 28 bases in 30 attempts. U-N-I is 27-26 overall and finished 16-15 in the league standings and will carry the fourth seed into the Valley post season tournament this week at Wichita State. He says they had trouble finding a way to get some wins early in the season, but now seem to have things rolling.The Panthers started league play 1-9 but Boeve says added experience and improved health help them turn the tables. He says they had a lot of new players at the start of the season and it took awhile for them to come together. Boeve actually began his career at U-N-I as a member of the football team but after his first year decided to focus on the diamond. He says he wanted to play both until after his freshman year, when he decided to focus on one sport.Which has been good news for coach Rick Heller who says Boeve is a perfect example of a great athlete whose baseball skills have skyrocketed since he began concentrating on the sport. He says Boeve was a good all-around athlete in high school, and has put in the work to become a great baseball player. Boeve was the national college player of the week after an 11 of 17 weekend which included ten R-B-I in a series at Evansville a week ago. Heller says he’s capable of putting up such numbers every week. Heller says Boeve will go in the pro draft, it’s just a matter of where. U-N-I opens the Valley tournament Wednesday morning against Southern Illinois.