Kentucky baseball earns Team Academic Excellence Award for 2022-23
Kentucky baseball accomplished something this week that no other program in the Southeastern Conference was able to pull off — and it happened off the diamond, too.
On Thursday, the Bat ‘Cats were recognized by the American Baseball Coaches Association with the organization’s Team Academic Excellence Award for 2022-23. Kentucky is the only SEC program to receive this honor in each of the previous six years. The ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award is handed out to high school and college baseball teams that post a cumulative team grade point average over 3.0.
36 of Kentucky baseball’s 39 rostered players from this past season made either the SEC’s First-Year Honor Roll or traditional honor roll.
“Everything we do in our program is built around developing young men, first and foremost, as students,” Head coach Nick Mingione said in UK’s press release. “I could not be more proud of the effort and commitment our team continues to put into their academic growth every year.
“We also greatly appreciate the work our academic counselor Michael Stone and his team at C.A.T.S. do for our student-athletes. They are a critical piece of their development.”
Since Mingione was brought on as head coach ahead of the 2017 season, a total of 233 Wildcats have been honored as SEC Academic Honor Roll and First-Year Academic Honor Roll recipients, including a league-best of 39 during the 2020 season. Mingione has also overseen the program’s first-ever SEC Student-Athlete of the Year (Zach Logue, 2017) in addition to multiple First-Team and Second-Team Academic All-Americans.
On the field, Kentucky made even more history this past season. The Bat ‘Cats made it to just the school’s second-ever Super Regional appearance after putting together a record of 40-21 (16-14 SEC) and at one point cracking the top 10 in the national rankings. Kentucky won the Lexington Regional as the host team before falling to eventual national champion LSU in the Baton Rouge Super Regional.
Mingione’s squad should be equally as good looking ahead to 2024, if not better. Kentucky has once again brought in a stellar crop of transfer prospects while retaining the majority of last season’s production. Something special appears to be brewing at Kentucky Proud Park.
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