St. John's University Athletics
Baseball, Men's Tennis Earn 2010-11 BIG EAST Academic Excellence Award
8/8/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
QUEENS, N.Y. - The BIG EAST Conference has announced the 26 teams that have earned 2010-11 Team Academic Excellence Awards, recognizing the highest collective grade point averages in each conference sport. St. John's has a pair of teams on the list this year as the baseball and men's tennis squads were each honored.
Eleven BIG EAST schools had at least one team honored as DePaul had a conference-best five teams recognized. Notre Dame and Syracuse had four teams each, while Cincinnati, Georgetown, Louisville and St. John's had two apiece.
The winners were chosen based on the 2010-11 grade point averages of each student-athlete who appeared on an institution's roster as of the last contest of the championship segment in each conference-sponsored sport.
The baseball team, which finished 36-22 and reached the NCAA Tournament for the second-straight season and fourth time in five years, posted a 3.07 team GPA. First round draft pick Joe Panik, who owns a 3.81 GPA in Finance, earned third team Capital One Academic All-America honors and was the recipient of the BIG EAST Baseball Scholar-Athlete Excellence Award. Both Panik and Jeremy Baltz earned first team Capital One Academic All-District honors, while a total of 20 student-athletes were named to the 2010-11 BIG EAST All-Academic Team.
The men's tennis squad, which earned the same honor following the 2008-09 academic year, finished the 2011 season with a program-record 17 wins and earned its first national ranking, while posting a 3.54 team GPA. Recently graduated Pavel Cerny, along with teammates Stefan Bojic, Dustin Goldenberg and Matty Najfeld were all named 2010-11 Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Scholar-Athletes, while the team earned the ITA All-Academic Team Award. The squad also had eight members named to this year's BIG EAST All-Academic Team and scored a perfect 1,000 on the NCAA's Academic Performance Program.
