Aug. 6, 2009

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Duke senior first baseman Nate Freiman has been named ACC Baseball Scholar-Athlete of the Year and heads up the 2009 Atlantic Coast Conference All-ACC Academic Baseball Team, as announced today by Commissioner John D. Swofford.

Freiman, a first-team Academic All-American and a three-time Academic All-District III selection, is a four-time member of the All-ACC Academic Baseball Team and has been named to the ACC Academic Honor roll four times. The Wellesley, Mass., native was also a finalist for the 2009 Lowe's Senior CLASS Award.

An eighth-round choice of the San Diego Padres in the 2009 Major League Draft (and a 2008 selection of the Texas Rangers before opting to return to the Duke for his senior year), Freiman is Duke's all-time career home run leader with 43, including 20 his senior year. Freiman also led the Blue Devils in batting (.352) and RBI (62) en route to earning second-team All-ACC honors.

The ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year awards were established in September 2007 to be awarded annually to the top junior or senior student-athlete in their respective sports. Candidates for the awards must have maintained a 3.0 grade point average for their career as well as a 3.0 for each of the last two semesters.

The 2009 All-ACC Academic Baseball Team features 16 repeat selections from 2008 and 13 players that earned first- or second-team All-ACC honors in 2009 (Boston College's Tony Sanchez; Duke's Freiman, Jeremy Gould and Andrew Wolcott; Florida State's Tyler Holt; Georgia Tech's Derek Dietrich, Tony Plagman and Jeff Rowland; Miami's Chris Hernandez; North Carolina's Adam Warren, and Virginia's Phil Gosselin, Dan Grovatt and Danny Hultzen). In Hultzen, the All-ACC Academic team also features the ACC Freshman of the Year.

Three student-athletes featured on the All-ACC Academic team were also named to at least one All-America team this past season (Boston College's Sanchez, Florida State's Holt and Virginia's Hultzen). Duke led all schools in total selections with nine, followed by Georgia Tech with six. Each of the ACC's 12 member schools placed at least one student-athlete on the 2009 All-ACC Academic Baseball Team.

To be eligible for consideration, a student-athlete must have earned at least a 3.00 grade point average for the previous semester and maintained at least a 3.00 cumulative average during his academic career.