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University of California, Los Angeles, Athletics
Two Bruins Earn Academic All-District Honors
May 10, 2018 | Baseball
LOS ANGELES – UCLA right-handed pitcher Jake Bird and catcher Daniel Rosica each secured Google Cloud Academic All-District 8 team honors, as announced by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) on Thursday.
Bird and Rosica become the first UCLA baseball players to earn the All-District academic honor since Ryan Deeter won back-to-back awards in 2012-13. They Bruins have earned five total All-District Team selections since 2006.
Bird, a senior from Stevenson Ranch, Calif., is a two-time Academic All-Pac-12 second team selection as an economics major with a 3.62 GPA. He leads the Pac-12 this season in innings pitched with 81.2 in 12 starts and is also second in the conference with a 1.87 ERA. Bird has totaled 42 strikeouts this season compared to just 21 walks. He threw the first complete game of his career at Arizona on May 3 and also tied a career-best with seven strikeouts at Utah on April 13. Bird has made 67 appearances in 24 starts in his career and holds a 3.15 ERA in four seasons.
Rosica, a redshirt junior from Fountain Valley, Calif., is a double major in economics and psychology and holds a 3.78 GPA. The two-time Academic All-Pac-12 first team honoree has started 19 games behind the plate this season but has played in all but seven games. Rosica is batting .154 this year with seven RBIs but is hitting .308 and has driven in four runs in the last 10 games. He drove in a season-high two runs in help clinch the series sweep of USC at home on April 22. Rosica started his career as a walk-on at UCLA and has gone on to start in over 90 games at catcher in his career.
The duo will advance to the Google Cloud Academic All-America ballot, where the first- and second-team All-America honorees will be selected in June. They are joined by three other Pac-12 players on the All-District Team – Collin Maier (Washington State), Cadyn Grenier (Oregon State) and Jack Anderson (Oregon State).
The 2018 CoSIDA Academic All-District Baseball Teams recognize top student-athletes for their combined performances athletically and in the classroom. District 8, one of eight districts across the United States and Canada encompasses Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Canada.
To be eligible for Academic All-America consideration, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.30 on a scale of 4.00, have reached sophomore athletic and academic standings at his/her current institution.
The No. 11 UCLA baseball team returns to the field this weekend when it begins a three-game Pac-12 series at Washington starting on Friday at 6 p.m. PT from Husky Ballpark.
