BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Gulf South Conference announced its 2024 Spring All-Academic Teams and Academic Honor Roll on Thursday and Valdosta State had four student-athletes earn All-Academic honors, while 54 were named to the Academic Honor Roll.
Earning Academic All-GSC honors this spring for the Blazers included junior pitcher
Nick Ferrara of baseball, along with men's tennis seniors
Luca Mack and
Christian Wedel and men's golf junior
Brandon Cho. For the 2023-24 academic year, the Blazers had ten student-athletes earn GSC All-Academic honors and 134 named to the GSC Academic Honor Roll for the fall, winter and spring seasons.
Click here for the 2024 GSC Spring Academic Team and Honor Roll.
Ferrara, a junior athletically, was lights-out for the Valdosta State Blazer baseball team in the 2024 season. The closer recorded a team-high eight saves which was also tied for second in the GSC. Ferrara appeared in 23 games for the Blazers, where he logged 34.1 innings of work with 31 strikeouts and held opponents to a .237 batting average. The righty held an ERA of 2.88 while walking 11 batters and allowing 11 earned runs. In the classroom, Ferrara finished his first year of obtaining his master's in education leadership, with a 3.66 cumulative GPA.
Mack, earned All-America honors for the third-straight year helping lead VSU to its first national title since 2011. Mack finished his career with a 3.71 grade-point average in international business. He earned All-GSC honors this season for the third-straight year and finished 36
th nationally in singles, going 13-7 this season. He capped an outstanding career going 69-19 in singles and 70-20 in doubles. Mack earned All-America honors three times, twice in singles and three times in doubles. In 2023, he was named GSC Player of the Year, earned the prestigious ITA Arthur Ashe Leadership & Sportsmanship Award, named GSC Men's Tennis Champion Scholar-Athlete, earned GSC Top Ten honors and was named VSU Male Athlete of the Year. This is Mack's third-straight year of earning GSC All-Academic honors.
In doubles, Mack and senior
Rodrigo Carvalho were a standout doubles duo earning All-America honors for the third-straight year capping outstanding careers for both. This season, the pair finished sixth nationally in doubles, going 13-1 at the top spot in the Blazer lineup. VSU finished the season with a 26-3 record, including a thrilling 4-3 win over Flagler College in the national championship match last month. The win gave VSU its third national title in men's tennis (2006, 2011, 2024) and ninth national title as an institution.
Wedel capped another outstanding season for the red and black as he clinched the national championship with a thrilling, three-set win over Flagler's Aly El Rafie, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. Wedel battled back in the third set winning five of the final six games of the set. For the season, Wedel finished 22-5 in singles and 14-3 in doubles. Wedel earned All-GSC honors four times, earning first team honors in 2021, 2022 and 2023, while he earned second team honors this season. Wedel finished his career with a 72-15 record in singles and a 42-17 mark in doubles.
Cho had a strong junior campaign for the Blazers on the links this season. He played in all 11 events this season with his best finish coming in the GSC Championship where he tied for sixth with a 220 score (72-74-74). He had 29 rounds in the 70s this season out of 31 total rounds, while he registered a 73.9 stroke average for the season. He carded a 54-hole low score of 214 finishing tied for eighth at the Bobcat Invitational.
