The Piedmont College baseball team has been named a recipient of the inaugural American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Team Academic Excellence Award for the 2015-16 academic year.
The new award was announced in May with teams being nominated through July 15 and the award announcement coming earlier this week.
In order to qualify for the award a team must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 on a 4.0 scale during both semesters of the 2015-16 academic year. The Lions finished the fall 2015 semester with a 3.15 cumulative GPA and posted a 3.18 GPA during the spring semester of 2016.
Piedmont was one of 33 NCAA Division III teams to earn the honor while being the only team from the USA South on the listing. A total of over 140 high school and college programs earned the ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award.
The Lions have recently named Justin Scali as Head Baseball Coach after Jim Peeples stepped down to serve solely as Director of Intercollegiate Athletics at Piedmont College. Scali announced this week the hire of Associate Head Baseball Coach Jared Broughton as the duo will be leading the program heading into the 2016-17 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/Diamond Regional & National Coaches of the Year and several other major awards such as the ABCA Hall of Fame and the ABCA/Wilson Lefty Gomez Award.
