July 22, 2016
MARSHALL, Texas - Awards keep piling up for the 2016 East Texas Baptist University baseball team as they have been named an ABCA (American Baseball Coaches Association) Team Excellence Award winner. This honor goes to programs that have a team grade point average of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale.
ETBU was just one of four programs in Texas that earned the award in NCAA Division III. They were also just one of two ASC (American Southwest Conference) teams to be recognized. Mary Hardin-Baylor and SCAC programs Southwestern University and Schreiner University also earned the honor.
"We are extremely proud to recognize the academic accomplishments of so many of our member coaches' programs this year," said ABCA Executive Director Craig Keilitz. "This award highlights our coaches' commitment to developing student-athletes that excel both on and off the field, and we're proud of these student-athletes for their success in the classroom."
Teams from NCAA Divisions I, II and III, junior college and high school were honored.
This award showcases the amount of hard work that the ETBU baseball team is doing off the field to compiling a grade point average higher than 3.0 as a team. This year they also had 13 players on the ASC All-Academic team leading all ETBU spring sports.
Individually in academics, both Conner Combs and Dynas Doud were named CoSIDA Academic All-Americans onto the first-team. Combs then was voted the CoSIDA NCAA Division III baseball Academic All-America of the year as the top academic player in NCAA Division III.
ETBU recorded 31 wins this past season and hosted the ASC Red Division Bracket. The 31 wins were the most since 2005-06.