Junior Caleb Thomas (Strongsville) was named Second Team Academic All-America by the College Sports Information Directors of America, becoming only the second player in school history to earn Academic All-America status for the ONU baseball program.
Twenty three of the 33 members of the 2018 Google Cloud Academic All-America
Division III baseball teams have at least a 3.90 GPA, with 10 student-athletes maintaining a perfect 4.00 GPA. The seven members of the first team have an average GPA of 3.95.
After being named First Team Academic All-District 7 by CoSIDA, Thomas moved on to the All-America ballot, where he was voted to the Second Team.
Thomas joins former Polar Bear Brett Hastings as the only two players to be named an Academic All-American for the Ohio Northern baseball program. Hastings was named an Academic All-American in back-to-back seasons in 1994-95.
Thomas, a Mechanical Engineering major, was also named Academic All-OAC in 2017 and was recently named First Team All-Ohio Athletic Conference for the 2018 season.
Thomas led the team with 38 RBI this season and wad tied for second on the team with four home runs.
He saw career-high numbers this season in hits (48), RBI (38), home runs (4) and doubles (12).
The Polar Bears finished the season 27-15 overall and 11-7 in the OAC and made an appearance in the OAC Tournament for the first time since the 2000 season.