LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Right-handed pitcher Brett Holland of The University of Texas at Tyler was taken in the forty-eighth round by the Oakland Athletics on Friday in the 2008 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.

Holland, a Lindale, Texas, native, has played three years for the Patriots and has amassed an impressive 18-0 record. Holland has a lifetime ERA of 2.97 over 145.2 innings of work and leads the Patriots, along with teammate Blake Booher, in career strikeouts with 170.

In 2008, Holland went 11-0, with 113 strikeouts and a season ERA of 2.76. For his performance, Holland was named first team All-ASC East Division, first team All-West Region, second team CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District, third team D3baseball.com All-American and third team ABCA All-American.

Holland is fourth player in UT Tyler Baseball history to be taken in the First-Year Player Draft and eighteenth Patriot to be offered or sign a contract to play professional baseball. Holland becomes the ninth player in UT Tyler Head Coach James Vilade’s nine-year coaching career to be drafted. He was also the only player from the American Southwest Conference to be drafted in 2008

Also drafted was former Patriot Tim Matthews, who went in the twenty-seventh round to the Colorado Rockies. Matthews played for UT Tyler during the 2005 season before transferring to Division I Baylor.