CoSIDA Academic All-District List
INDIANAPOLIS – Racking up more honors for his senior season, Greg Valentine saw his named listed on the Google Cloud College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Baseball Academic All-District 3 team announced by the organization on Thursday.
This year is the fourth consecutive campaign that the Eagles have place a player on the list. Brandon Roberts secured the honor in 2016, Paul Kirby was tabbed in 2017 and Dillon Cate in 2018. Kirby and Cate were later honored as Academic All-Americans joining Brandon Burchfield in 2006 and 2007 as C-N baseball athletes earning the nation's top academic-athlete honor.
With a 3.92 grade-point average in business, the Knoxville, Tenn. native had the fifth-highest GPA of the 13 players on the district 3 ledger consisting of teams from the South Atlantic Conference, Peach Belt and Conference Carolinas. Eight players were from the SAC.
In the record books, Valentine finished his career with 92 appearances and 19 wins to hold the program record for career appearances, a mark that is the high-water mark among active Division II players. His eight wins in 2019 were good for sixth on the single-season list.
A second-team All-SAC selection, the hurler became the 27th pitcher in the history of the program to earn a spot on an all-conference team. His sophomore and junior campaigns rank seventh and sixth on the program's appearances list 26 and 27 respectively.
Moving to the starting rotation for the first time in his career, the right-hander put together a brilliant campaign going 8-3 on the mound with a 3.64 ERA in 74 2/3 innings. His eight victories were good for third in the league and among the top 20 in the country while his ERA was top 10 among starters.
He passed the program mark for career outings with his start on April 5 against ninth-ranked Newberry passing the mark of 88 previously held by Ryan Fillers (2010-13). He went 19-5 during that stretch with 155 strikeouts in 177 1/3 stanzas on the bump.
Piece together February and April of his senior season and he logged 48 2/3 innings over 10 outings punching out 44 with a 2.03 ERA. That period includes the best outing of career going eight innings of one-run baseball at Queens on April 13 fanning 12.
Carson-Newman has had 24 Academic All-Americans dating back to 1992 with Valentine being eligible to become the fourth 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.
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