Five BVU baseball players earn Academic All-District honors

Five Buena Vista University baseball players are earning Academic All-District honors, a recognition that underscores how much BVU asks of its athletes in the classroom and on the field. Jake Eddie, Connor Duong, Teagen Kasel, Cooper Sobeck and Kaden Struck were named to the 2026 College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Baseball Team, with Eddie selected for the second straight year.

For Jake Eddie, the honor carries extra weight because it pairs academic work with real competitive responsibility. Eddie is a business marketing major, and the Academic All-District standard requires more than a strong grade-point average. Student-athletes must be at least sophomores in both academic and athletic standing, have completed at least one full academic year on campus, hold a cumulative 3.5 GPA on a 4.0 scale and meet competition thresholds. Pitchers must appear in 17 games or throw 35 innings, showing the award is built for players who are contributing meaningfully while keeping up with demanding coursework.

That balance matters in Storm Lake because BVU baseball has spent the last two seasons building a profile rooted in both performance and accountability. In 2025, the Beavers swept the American Rivers Conference’s major awards, with Mark Eddie named Pitcher of the Year, Evan Taylor voted Position Player of the Year and Kaden Struck selected Rookie of the Year. The season before, BVU had already shown how far the program had come, going 20-3 in conference play, winning the league by 3 1/2 games and claiming the program’s 18th regular-season conference title.

The 2023 championship also marked BVU baseball’s first back-to-back league title run in 42 years, a point the school marked with a ring ceremony that drew more than 100 student-athletes, alumni, parents, extended family members and friends. That kind of turnout reflects how deeply the program is woven into Buena Vista County, where BVU is one of the anchor institutions and Beaver baseball remains part of the local identity.

The recognition also fits the long arc of the Steve Eddie era. BVU noted in a 2022 profile that he was in his 22nd season and had more than 400 career victories, and that 2022 was the first time he coached his son, Mark Eddie, at the collegiate level. Jake Eddie’s second Academic All-District selection adds another layer to that family and program story, one that has tied winning baseball to sustained academic standards in the center of Storm Lake.