Baseball collects fourth-straight ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award

ABCA Release

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The American Baseball Coaches' Association today recognized the Bellevue University baseball team as the Bruins earned the ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award for the fourth-consecutive season.

This marks the fifth time that BU has received the prestigious ABCA honor with Bellevue previously receiving ABCA Team Academic Excellence Awards in 2017, 2020, 2021, and 2022.

The Bruins were one of 33 NAIA schools to receive the honor and one of just three to also reach the Avista NAIA World Series. Taylor University and University of Cumberlands were the other two.

Teams from every level of college and high school baseball were honored with this year's award, which highlights programs coached by ABCA members that posted a GPA of 3.0 or above on a 4.0 scale for the entire 2022-23 academic year.

Over 250 high school programs and more than 420 collegiate programs were recognized with this year's award.

Coaches were able to nominate their teams for the ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award following the conclusion of their spring semesters prior to the nomination deadline of July 14. To be honored, teams had to meet the following criteria:

• Must be a high school or college team
• Head coach must be a current ABCA member
• Team must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 on a 4.0 scale during the 2022-23 academic year

The American Baseball Coaches Association has a long tradition of recognizing the achievements of baseball coaches and student-athletes. The ABCA/Rawlings All-America Teams are the nation's oldest, founded in 1949, and the ABCA's awards program also includes the ABCA/Rawlings All-Region Awards, the ABCA/ATEC Regional & National Coaches of the Year and several other major awards such as the ABCA Hall of Fame and the Dave Keilitz Ethics in Coaching Award.

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Bellevue is coming off a 2023 season in which the program reached the Avista NAIA World Series for the 16^th time in program history. During the campaign, the Bruins posted a 48-10 overall mark, going 25-3 in conference play while sweeping both the NSAA Regular-Season and Tournament titles. BU parlayed the league's lone automatic bid into the program's 25^th NAIA National Tournament Appearance, hosting their fifth Opening Round at Don Roddy Field and defeating Oklahoma City in the Championship Game to reach the Avista NAIA World Series for the third time in four seasons.