HARTSVILLE, S.C. – Coker College baseball players Brendan Burns (Woodstock, Ontario), Frank Suarez (Miami, Fla.) and Matthew Bowman (Streator, Ill.) were named to the 2012 Conference Carolinas Baseball Academic All-Conference team.

Burns is a physical education major with a concentration in exercise science; Suarez is a physical education major with a sport management concentration; Bowman is a business administration major.

“I am really proud of these guys,” head coach Dave Schmotzer said. “They have been prolific not only on the baseball field – where their work habits are above average – but they’ve transferred it to the classroom. Ever since they stepped onto this campus they’ve been wonderful student-athletes.”

Conference Carolinas awards junior and senior student-athletes with a cumulative grade-point average of 3.25 or higher on a 4.0 scale in all work completed at their member institution who have played in a conference sponsored sport. The GPA is calculated based on the student-athletes’ cumulative average through the previous semester, and each student-athlete must have attended his or her member institution for at least one academic year.

Conference Carolinas is a NCAA Division II athletic conference made up of 12 teams from North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. These institutions consist of: Barton College, Belmont Abbey College, Coker College, Converse College, Erskine College, King College, Lees-McRae College, Limestone College, Mount Olive College, North Greenville University, Pfeiffer University and Queens University of Charlotte.

For more information, contact Chris Dougherty, Manager of Athletics Media Relations, at 843-383-8018 or cdougherty@coker.edu.

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Coker College readies undergraduates for personal and professional success through a distinctive four-year program that emphasizes a practical application of the liberal arts as well as hands-on and discussion-based learning within and beyond the classroom. Coker is ranked among the “Best Colleges” in the South by U.S. News & World Report as well as The Princeton Review. Located in Hartsville, S.C., Coker is within two hours of the cultural, financial and recreational resources of Charlotte, Columbia, Charleston and Myrtle Beach.