KODAK, Tenn. – For the second-straight season, senior pitcher Ryan Victory was named the South Atlantic Conference's Elite 20 award winner Friday evening at the 2019 Pilot J Baseball Championships being held at Smokies Stadium. The plaudit is awarded by the league for outstanding work not only in the field of competition, but also in the classroom around the community.
It is modeled after the NCAA's Elite 90 award as the league offers the award to the top cumulative GPA on a minimum of 48 credit hours to an individual competing in the league's 20 championships.
This season is the third year that the award has been handed out with the Eagles sweeping the honors. Victory joined 2017 winner and former Eagle first baseman Paul Kirby as winners of the award.
The Brentwood, Tenn. native sports a perfect 4.0 grade-point average with a major in business. Since arriving on Carson-Newman's campus in the fall of 2015, he has been an Eagle Scholar every semester thus far into her C-N career. A student-athlete who meets or surpasses a GPA of 3.25 is recognized by the university as an Eagle Scholar and is given a patch to wear on their uniform during competition.
OH SWEET CAROLINE! @ryan_victory1 strikes out the side in the seventh. Eagles pitching has 10 punchouts on the afternoon.
— Carson-Newman Athletics (@CNathletics) February 24, 2019
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On the mound, the right-hander appeared in 69 games over his career collecting nine wins and three saves with 88 strikeouts in 112 2/3 innings pitched. The right-hander produced a career-high eight strikeouts over six frames allowing three hits and two runs while picking up the win against Alderson Broaddus on Feb. 8, 2019. It was the third in a line of five games where he secured a victory.
The final outing of his career may go down as the highlight of his baseball career firing three shutout stanzas with four strikeouts to pick up a win over Coker in the regular-season finale. He worked around a bases loaded, no one out jam to strand three and set the stage for a 6-5, walk-off win.
Among Carson-Newman athletes to win the honor, track and field's Bekah White and men's golf's Anthony Marcinelli have also been lauded for their efforts in the history of the award.
Stay tuned with Carson-Newman baseball program throughout the offseason by bookmarking cneagles.com in your favorite browser and following @CNathletics on Twitter and Instagram.
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