Roberts named baseball’s second CoSIDA Academic All-District student-athlete

Full CoSIDA Release

ORLANDO – Senior third baseman Brandon Roberts became the second Carson-Newman baseball player in the program's history to earn College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-District for Division II's District 3 being placed the roster Wednesday afternoon.

Roberts joins Brandon Burchfield as the only two players to be named CoSIDA Acadmeic All-district as Burchfield was an All-American in 2006 and 2007.

The Davie, Fla. native excelled in the classroom piling up a 3.54 GPA while studying in the Carson-Newman Communications School with a major of Media Studies.

Roberts is the third C-N third baseman to earn a first-team All-South Atlantic Conference nod and the first since Derrick Lankford in 1996. The senior ranks in the top-10 in the conference in hits (71 – 5th), batting average (.368 - 9th), RBIs (54 – 6th), slugging percentage (.622 – 9th) and total bases (120 – 8th). On March 1, Roberts was named the SAC and Tennessee Sportswriters' Association Player of the Week as he became the first C-N player to earn the SAC honor since Kevin Franchetti won on March 5, 2013. He began the year on a 17-game hitting streak and has notched 20 multi-hit games and 14 multi-RBI outings.

The third baseman tallied a .944 fielding percentage tallying 117 assists, second among players at the hot corner and ninth in the league while being a part of nine double plays.

The teams recognize the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances athletically and in the classroom. The Academic All-District teams are broken up into eight geographic districts across the United States and Canada separating Division I, Division II and Division III schools.

District 3 is comprised of teams from Conference Carolinas, the Peach Belt Conference and SAC. Conference Carolinas placed one person on the team, the Peach Belt saw two student-athletes take a spot concluding with four players from the SAC.

Carson-Newman has had 21 Academic All-Americans dating back to 1992 with Roberts being eligible to become the second baseball player for the CoSIDA Academic All-America Team ballot, where first-, second- and third-team All-America honorees to be selected later this month.

NCAA DIVISION II (Conference Carolinas, Peach Belt, South Atlantic) DISTRICT 3 FIRST TEAM