Baseball's Cunningham Named 2018 Academic All-American
6/7/2018 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Cunningham garnered the honor for the first time in his career and gave Baylor an Academic All-America selection for the eighth time in the last 10 seasons. He is the first to garner the honor since Logan Brown in 2015. Overall, he is the program's 16th all-time selection and 12th different player to earn the award.
To be eligible for CoSIDA All-America recognition, Cunningham earned Google Cloud Academic All-District VII first team honors for the first time in his career on May 10.
The Austin, Texas, native graduated with a 3.83 GPA in finance and currently owns a 3.89 GPA in his first year in graduate school in the business administration program. Cunningham is one of only two players in the Big 12 Conference represented on the three-team, 33-person list.
Cunningham had a strong year in 2018, setting career highs in games played (55, all starts), batting average (.342), runs (45), home runs (9), RBI (38) and steals (6). He was named Big 12 Player of the Week on May 14, All-Big 12 second team on May 22 and Big 12 Championship All-Tournament Team on May 27 after helping the Bears win their first Big 12 Championship title in program history.
To be eligible for Academic All-America consideration, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative G.P.A. of 3.30 on a scale of 4.00, have reached sophomore athletic and academic standings at his/her current institution and be nominated by his/her sports information director.
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BAYLOR ACADEMIC ALL-AMERICANS
Pat Combs, 1st Team (1988)
Charley Carter, 1st Team (1998)
Jon Topolski, 2nd Team (1998)
Jason Jennings, 3rd Team (1998)
Jason Jennings, 1st Team (1999)
Jon Topolski, 2nd Team (1999)
Ross Bennett, 1st Team (2003)
Zach Dillon, 1st Team (2006)
Aaron Miller, 2nd Team (2009)
Chris Slater, 2nd Team (2010)
Chris Slater, 1st Team (2011)
Kolt Browder, 3rd Team (2012)
Kolt Browder, 2nd Team (2013)
Doug Ashby, 2nd Team (2014)
Logan Brown, 2nd Team (2015)
Richard Cunningham, 3rd Team (2018)
GOOGLE CLOUD ACADEMIC ALL-AMERICA TEAMS
FIRST TEAM
Matt Ball, United States Military Academy, P
Nick Sandlin, Southern Miss, P
Alex Holderbach, Eastern Kentucky, C
Nick Grande, Stony Brook, IF
Justin Jones, Georgia State, IF
Jake McKenzie, Texas, IF
Simon Whiteman, Yale, IF
Stephen Born, U.S. Naval Academy, OF
Devlin Granberg, Dallas Baptist, OF
Jayse McLean, North Dakota State, OF
Will Haueter, Northern Kentucky, DH
SECOND TEAM
Dylan Moore, Louisiana-Lafayette, P
Ben Morrison, Western Kentucky, P
Collin Braithwaite, Illinois State, C
Nolan Bumstead, Cal State Northridge, IF
Trevor Putzig, Tennessee Tech, IF
Rafael Ramirez, Grambling State, IF
Andrew Valichka. North Carolina Central, IF
Andrew Moritz, UNC Greensboro, OF
Gehrig Parker, Butler, OF
Hunter Phillips, Alabama State, OF
Nico Mascia, Tennessee, DH
THIRD TEAM
Jake Bird, UCLA, P
Jeff Gottesman, Bucknell, P
Ryan Jeffers, UNC Wilmington, C
Aaron Aucker, Middle Tennessee State, IF
Chase Chambers, Tennessee Tech, IF
Micah Coffey, Minnesota, IF
Joe Provenzano, McNeese State, IF
Isaac Feldstein, Connecticut, OF
Sam Fuller, St. Bonaventure, OF
Nick Howie, Eastern Kentucky, OF
Richard Cunningham, Baylor, DH
