Baseball Earns Academic Excellence Award for Sixth Straight Year

Azusa Pacific baseball claimed its sixth consecutive ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award for the 2020-21 academic year.

AZUSA, Calif. -- Azusa Pacific earned the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Team Academic Excellence Award for the sixth consecutive season, qualifying for the award after posting a team GPA of 3.3 for the 2020-21 academic year.

The Cougars are the only NCAA Division II

program from the West Region to claim the award each of the last six years, and are the only program to make the postseason and receive the award for each of the past four seasons. Azusa Pacific is one of the 77 NCAA Division II programs to earn the Team Academic Excellence Award this year.

"It's always an honor to be recognized by the ABCA as a high academic achieving program," coach Paul Svagdis said, "Knowing our team's success on the field translates into the classroom is the epitome of why I got into coaching."

Individually, the Cougars had 26 student-athletes named to the All-PacWest Academic Team this year, it marks the eighth consecutive year in which the baseball program has had 20 or more student-athletes finish the year with a GPA of 3.0 or higher.