The Piedmont College baseball team has been named a recipient of the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Team Academic Excellence Award for the 2016-17 academic year. The Lions earned the honor for the second straight season after the ABCA began recognizing teams for their academic achievements through the creation of this award last season.
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 2016-17 academic year.
Piedmont was one of 59 NCAA Division III teams to earn the honor while being the only team from the USA South on the listing once again. A total of over 200 high school and college programs earned the ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award, up from over 140 last season.
The Lions had success both on the field and in the classroom in the 2016-17 academic year posting a 24-20 record including making a run as the #8 seed in the USA South conference tournament all the way to the tournament final. Piedmont's Griffin Olson and Zach Langley both earned individual academic honors being named CoSIDA Academic All-District selections in May.
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.
