STANDISH, Maine – For the second consecutive year, the Saint Joseph's College baseball program has received high academic honors from the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA). The Monks are among the 76 NCAA DIII teams to have earned a Team Academic Excellence Award, an honor bestowed upon college and high school programs with a 3.0 GPA or above 3.0 on a 4.0 scale during the 2017-18 academic year.

Buoyed by 13 GNAC Academic All-Conference honorees, Saint Joseph's registered a 3.12 team GPA during the 2017-18 academic year as the baseball team captured the athletic department's annual Male Team GPA award for the fourth time in the last 11 years.

Junior outfielder Jared Gagne (Dover, N.H.) helped set the tone for the Monks both on the field and in the classroom by garnering Google Cloud Academic All-District® accolades. Gagne, a First Team All-Conference selection and D3baseball.com, ABCA/Rawlings, and NEIBA All-New England honoree, is the seventh SJC baseball player to earn CoSIDA Academic All-District® acclaim since 2011.

Under the watch of 26th-year Head Coach Will Sanborn '86, Saint Joseph's went 29-13 overall with a 10-4 mark en route to earning the #2 seed in the GNAC Tournament last spring. The Monks, selected as a predetermined host for the 2018 tourney, opened postseason play with a 9-5 loss to #3 Johnson & Wales University on May 3rd and fought their way into the GNAC Championship with elimination-game triumphs over Lasell College and Johnson & Wales before falling to top-seeded Suffolk University, 6-5, in the title game on May 6th.

Saint Joseph's is one of just eight New England Region programs to earn the high academic honor, as Endicott College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Middlebury College, Roger Williams University, Salve Regina University, Suffolk University, and Tufts University join the Monks on the short list.

In total, 287 programs were recognized with the 2017-18 ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award, including 93 high school programs.

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 18. 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 2017-18 academic year. GPA may not be rounded up.

CLICK HERE to view the entire team list