Five Key UK Baseball Players Earn Academic Honors

Nolan McCarthy (Vicky Graff Photo)

Kentucky baseball has done some amazing things this season winning 43 games, including 22 in Southeastern Conference play that enabled UK to share the SEC championship with Tennessee.

Kentucky also won a NCAA Tournament regional last weekend and now gets to host its first super regional this weekend.

However, coach Nick Mingione’s team has been a huge academic success as well with five players — Devin Burkes, Mitchell Daly, Nolan McCarthy, Emilien Pitre and Ryan Waldschmidt named to the Division I Academic All-District Team that requires a player to have at least a 3.5 grade-point average and be a significant team contributor which they all certainly are.

Daly, Pitre and Waldschmidt also will advance to the Academic All-America voting.

Daly, a graduate transfer from Texas, has a 3.90 GPA in communication. He was named to both the Lexington Regional All-Tournament Team and Southeastern Conference All-Defensive Team.

Pitre, a junior from Quebec, has a 3.56 GPA in management even though English is his second language.  He is a two-time Academic All-District honoree and two-time SEC all-defensive pick. He also earned Lexington Regional All-Tournament Team honors.
 
Waldschmidt has a 3.66 GPA in business administration/finance and is another two-time Academic All-District honoree and  Lexington Regional All-Tournament Team pick. He was also a second-team all-SEC selection.

Burkes, a junior, has been sensational behind the plate but he also has a  3.54 GPA in communication. He recently graduated and was named to the Lexington Regional All-Tournament Team for the second straight season. Burkes also was named Academic All-District in 2022-23.

McCarthy, a business administration/finance major, recently graduated with a 3.54 GPA.

All five will have significant roles for UK this weekend against Oregon State as it tries to reach the College World Series for the first time but obviously all five have always found a way to balance athletics and academics during their collegiate careers.