GREEBSBORO, N.C. – The Villanova Baseball program has been honored for its work in the classroom following the 2021-22 campaign, being named a Team Academic Excellence Award Recipient by the American Baseball Coaches Association on Wednesday morning.
The Wildcats are one of nearly 700 member college and high school programs from across the country that have been given the award, which is presented by Sports Attack. Teams from every level of college and high school baseball were honored with this year's award, which highlights programs coached by ABCA members that posted a GPA of 3.0 or above on a 4.0 scale for the entire 2021-22 academic year.
Head coach
Kevin Mulvey's group posted a team GPA of 3.190 during this past academic campaign. He has 21 of his student-athletes land a spot on the BIG EAST All-Academic Team for the year with 16 earning spots on the Athletic Director's Honor Roll, 13 of those doing so in both the fall and spring semesters including
Tyler Arella,
August Biggio,
Jonathan Cole,
Luke Fisher,
AJ Hansen,
Cameron Hassert,
Patrick Montfort,
Pat O'Neill,
Jack O'Reilly,
Matt Pinone,
Will Reiner,
Theron Schilling and
John Whooley.
Chris Rotondo also added to the list of academic accolades for the 'Cats with a PhillySIDA Academic All-Area plaudit.
Over 250 high school programs and more than 420 collegiate programs were recognized with this year's award.
Coaches were able to nominate their teams for the ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award following the conclusion of their spring semesters prior to the nomination deadline of July 14. To be honored, teams had to meet the following criteria:
- Must be a high school or college team
- Head coach must be a current ABCA member
- Team must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 on a 4.0 scale during the 2021-22 academic 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/ATEC Regional & National Coaches of the Year and several other major awards such as the ABCA Hall of Fame and the Dave Keilitz Ethics in Coaching Award.
