PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland Pilots baseball team has earned an American Baseball Coaches Association Team Academic Excellence Award for the 2020-21 season. It is the sixth year in a row that Portland has earned the honor, with the Pilots having done so every year since the award's inception in 2016.

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

It is not the only academic honors that the Pilots have earned this season. Earlier this year, the Pilots had two student-athletes – Christian Peters and Chad Stevens – make the WCC All-Academic First Team and six more players earn honorable mention. 32 Pilot baseball players also made the WCC Commissioner's Honor Roll, which recognizes WCC student-athletes that boast a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale.

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.