July 11, 2008

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The UAB baseball team has earned the Conference USA Sport Academic Award after cumulating the highest overall GPA in the league this past academic year as announced by C-USA Commissioner Britton Banowski Friday.

The Blazers held a 3.06 cumulative GPA this past academic year.

"I'm really excited about this," said UAB head coach Brian Shoop. "We've made academics one of our priorities in our program. We know that excelling in the classroom will have a long-term impact on their lives. We were thrilled that 29 of our 34 players in one semester or the other earned a 3.0 GPA or better. It's a credit to the kids and also to our academic crew Josh Watson and Danez Marrable."

Rice earned the Conference USA Institutional Excellence Award for the third straight year, which is an award given to the C-USA institution with the highest grade point average during the academic year for all student-athletes in conference sponsored sports.