CoSIDA Division II Academic All-American Release
INDIANAPOLIS – To put a punctuation mark on his time in a Carson-Newman uniform, senior right-hander Dillon Cate was lauded as a second-team 2018 Google Cloud Academic Division II All-American team selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Wednesday afternoon.
Out of the 33 members honored as All-Americans, Cate is one of seven players to tally a flawless 4.0 grade-point average as he studied pre-med, biology and health professions. The right-hander is sporting a flawless 4.00 GPA pursuing his Master's degree in Business.
The Sevierville, Tenn. native joins Brandon Burchfield and Paul Kirby at the pinnacle of scholar honors nationally by Carson-Newman baseball players. Burchfield was a second-team choice in 2006 and a first-team honoree in 2007. Kirby was a first-team selection in 2017.
The Eagles are one of eight schools to have a member of the All-American groups each of the last two seasons. The school has had 27 Academic All-Americans all-time including 11 members over the last six years.
Earlier this year, Cate joined a lineage of Eagle pitchers to take a spot on the first-team All-South Atlantic Conference team as he became the ninth and first since Vince Apicella in 2016. The redshirt-senior was 27th in the country for strikeouts and ranked second in the league with 97 on the season in 80 1/3 innings pitched. His six wins were tied for fifth while his 4.30 ERA is 11th.
In the C-N record books, the righty was tied for fifth for strikeouts in a single season. He worked at least six innings in nine of his 13 starts as the Eagles are 8-5 when he took the ball.
On Feb. 18, 2018 against 14th-ranked Northwood, Cate produced one of the best pitching performances in the history of the school. He set a Division II record for the school with 15 strikeouts, a mark that was the fourth-highest in Division II this season. He did not allow a hit in 7 1/3 frames of work walking six to earn the victory. The Sevierville, Tenn. native was awarded the SAC Pitcher of the Week as well as the NCBWA Region and National Pitcher of the Week honor.
The Division II Google Cloud Academic All-America program is partially financially supported by the NCAA Division II national governance structures, to assist CoSIDA with handling the awards fulfillment aspects for the 2017-18 Division II Academic All-America teams.
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