ERIE, Pa, - The Penn State Behrend baseball team was honored with this year's American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Team Academic Excellence Award. This award recognizes teams coached by ABCA members that posted a GPA over 3.0 on a 4.0 scale for the 2016-17 academic year.
In total, 215 programs were recognized with the 2016-17 ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award, including 68 high school programs and 59 teams from NCAA Division III. The Lions are the recipients from the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC).
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 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.