Official ABCA Release

TACOMA, Wash. — The Pacific Lutheran University baseball team excelled on the field and in the classroom this spring and this week was among the 750 high school and college baseball programs from around the nation to earn the Team Academic Excellence Award from the American Baseball Coaches Association.
 
The Lutes are among the 440 colleges and universities to be recognized with the award and join five other Northwest Conference institutions in securing the award. To be eligible, the head coach must be an ABCA member and the team needed a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale) or better. During the 2024-2025 academic year, the baseball squad tallied a 3.25 cumulative grade point average with 73 percent of the squad boasting a GPA above a 3.0. That included three perfect 4.0s.

In addition to the Lutes, conference rivals George Fox University, Lewis & Clark College, Pacific University, Whitman College, and Willamette University all earned the ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award.
 
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.

PLU finished the 2025 season with a 17-22 overall record, netting wins against teams from all three NCAA divisions. That includes a 3-1 stunner of Division I University of Washington on March 18, an 8-2 home thrashing of Division II Saint Martin's University on April 22, and an 11-7 win on Feb. 15 over Pomona-Pitzer Colleges, a team that ranked eighth in all of Division III at the time.