LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. -- The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference had two student-athletes receiving Academic All-America® honors for Division III Baseball as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
The league was represented by Centenary College's Michael Schimpf on First Team and Texas Lutheran University's Riley Schaefer on Third Team.
Schimpf graduated with a 3.94 GPA with degrees in history and French on April 29. He has also been a CoSIDA Academic All-Region selection the past two seasons. Schimpf is the first Centenary athlete to be named to the CoSIDA Academic All-America first team.
Last week, Schimpf received Second Team All-America accolades from D3Baseball.com as an outfielder. He finished with a .405 batting average in 2017, becoming only the second player to lead the conference in batting average for a season twice in his career. He was the only player in the SCAC with an on-base percentage above .500, finishing sixth in the nation at .547. Schimpf finished second in the SCAC to other Gents in runs scored (54, 21st in the nation), RBI’s (48, 41st in nation), and slugging percentage (.622).
Schaefer, a junior accounting major with a 4.0 grade point average in accounting, is the fourth Bulldog honoree of the 2016-17 academic year.
In leading TLU to a second-place regular-season finish in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, Schaefer hit .343 and tallied 33 runs, 26 RBI and 13 stolen bases. He collected seven doubles, five triples and a home run. He made just one error all season.
Schaefer, the team's starting right-fielder, was named to the SCAC First Team and was part of the TLU squad that received the SCAC's Sportsmanship Award for baseball. Schaefer will be named to the SCAC Spring Academic Honor Roll for a third consecutive season.
This year's CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division III baseball team features eight individuals who have earned multiple CoSIDA Academic All-America® honors in their careers. This year's CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division III Baseball First Team features four individuals, including Academic All-America of the Year Connor Combs of East Texas Baptist, who have been named previously to the Academic All-America® team. There are four repeat honorees on the second team.
The CoSIDA Division III Academic All-America® program is financially supported by the NCAA Division III national governance structure to assist CoSIDA with handling the awards fulfillment aspects for the 2016-17 Division III Academic All-America® teams program.
