Berkley baseball continues reign of academic excellence

BERKLEY — After a historic season on the field, Berkley High School baseball ended its 2023 campaign with a prominent award in the classroom.

The American Baseball Coaches Association recognized the Bears with the Team Academic Excellence Award for the 2022-23 season, which requires a team to hold a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher throughout the academic year.

Berkley tallied a 3.25 cumulative GPA with senior Landon Pugh (4.37), senior Davis O’Donnell (4.33) and junior Dane Benner (4.00) all earning Division 1 academic all-state honors this year. Pugh and O’Donnell are slated to attend the University of Michigan in the fall.

Berkley coach Matthew Rawlik said the upperclassmen play a pivotal role in setting the standard in the classroom.

“We value it,” Rawlik said. “We think it’s important to be well-rounded. You’re a student-athlete, and student comes first. I think when you have kids — and we’ve had kids who are academic all-state every year, with one who’s had a 4.0 or better — who have upperclassmen that are seniors that are accomplishing that while also being multisport athletes, it kind of sets a standard for the underclassmen.”

Talk about setting a standard: the Bears ended a 15-year drought this season by securing the team’s first district title in baseball since 2008. The school now has six district titles to its name.

It was as brutal of a start to a season as a team can have, losing six consecutive games to start the year before rattling off an impressive finish to win the district.

Like the performances in the classroom, Rawlik said it was his guys’ determination that led them to success.

“These guys bought in,” Rawlik said. “They worked hard every day, and they never got too high and they never got too low. There were some low moments, especially early on when we were trying to find our footing, but they never got too down and they trusted the process.”