May 28, 2008

QUEENS, N.Y. - St. John's senior baseball players Jeff Grantham and George Brown have both earned CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America honors. Grantham earned first team honors for the second consecutive season, while Brown was named to the second team. Both players were eligible for Academic All-America status after being named to the Academic All-District first team.

This marks the second straight season that Grantham has earned both All-District and All-America first team honors. The senior captain earned All-BIG EAST third team honors thi season and also earned his first career BIG EAST Player of the Week accolade. As St. John's heads to its second straight NCAA Tournament, Grantham is bating a career-high .354 and also has a career-best 31 runs scored. The shortstop leads the team with a .479 on-base percentage and has seven doubles and two home runs. Grantham boasts a 3.97 GPA in physics.

Brown, meanwhile, earns second team Academic All-America honors for the first time. This season, the senior lefty was named the BIG EAST Pitcher of the Year and was also named to the All-BIG EAST first team. Brown earned BIG EAST Pitcher of the Week honors twice and was named to the weekly honor roll once. The southpaw is 9-0 with a 2.73 ERA in 13 starts. Brown has a career-high 58 strikeouts in a career-high 85.2 innings. An accounting major, Brown has a 3.47 GPA.

St. John's earned its second straight NCAA Tournament bid, and its fourth in the past five seasons, after posting a 41-14 record and winning its second straight BIG EAST regular season title. The Red Storm reached the 40-win plateau for a school-record fourth straight season and tied school records with both 41 overall wins and 20 conference wins.