PORTLAND, Ore. --- Make it five in a row for the Portland Pilots baseball team, which earned another ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award, it was announced earlier this week. The award honors high school and college programs that posted a GPA over 3.0 for the academic year.
 
The Pilots have gone a perfect five-for-five earning the award, which was first introduced in 2016. During the 2019-20 academic year, the Pilots combined for a team GPA of 3.30, and 14 players landed on the Dean's List.
 
In order to qualify for the ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award, programs must meet the following criteria:
• Must be a high school or college team
• Team must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 on a 4.0 scale during the 2017-18 academic year
• Head coach must be a current ABCA member
 
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/Diamond Regional & National Coaches of the Year and several other major awards such as the ABCA Hall of Fame and the Ethics in Coaching Award.