GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford baseball team has been honored by the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) for success in the classroom during the 2017-18 school year with a Team Academic Excellence Award, officials announced earlier this week.
"This is a great accomplishment for our guys," Head Coach Zach Foster said. "This is the changing culture that athletes can be great academically and athletically and our guys are buying into what we are teaching them. You need to strive to be great in all areas: academics, athletics, social life, family life and so on and so forth, and if you are lacking in one, that carries over into the rest of them. Our guys strive to be great in the classroom as well as on the field and want to hold themselves to that standard as student-athletes."
The ABCA awards high school and collegiate member teams that hold a team GPA of 3.0 or higher for the whole academic year.
The Pitt-Bradford baseball team -- with 25 roster players -- finished the 2017-18 school year with a team GPA of 3.138.
Senior Brody Wood was honored by Pitt-Bradford Athletics this year with the Triangle of Success Award for his accomplishments on the field, in the classroom and in the community. Sophomore Tyler Hoops also took home honors by Pitt-Bradford Athletics as the 2017-18 Male Scholar-Athlete of the 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 Ethics in Coaching Award.
Pitt-Bradford put together one of the most successful seasons in recent history, finishing 17-16 overall and 10-8 in AMCC play. The 10 regular-season conference victories were the program's most since 2010. As a result, Pitt-Bradford earned the No. 4 seed in the AMCC Championship Tournament and hosted Penn State-Altoona for the First Round.
