Scranton's Stallone Earns Academic All-America Honors

SCRANTON, Pa. - Chris Stallone (South Plainfield, N.J./South Plainfield), a sophomore outfielder on The University of Scranton baseball team, has picked up another prestigious award—only this time for his exploits in the classroom.

Stallone has been named third-team Academic all-American by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), becoming the 23rd student-athlete from The University of Scranton to garner this award. He is also the fourth player from the Royal baseball program to be honored, joining the likes of Greg Moro (honorable mention, 1986), Scott Sannito (1st team, 1990) and current teammate Justin Champagne (3rd team, 2008).

In order to qualify, a student-athlete must be at least a sophomore, be a starter or key reserve, and maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.3-or-higher. Stallone holds a 3.93 grade point average while pursing a degree in finance and has been named to the Dean’s List four times. He is a member of the Alpha Lambda Delta National Freshman Honor Society, Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), and Business and Finance clubs.

His accomplishments on the baseball diamond are just as impressive. This past season, he was named first-team all-Landmark Conference and earned a second-team berth on the Eastern College Athletic Conference South all-star team.

Stallone established new Scranton single-season records for most hits (65) and runs scored (59) during the 2009 season. He also led the Royals in total bases (78), sacrifice bunts (6), at-bats (149), stolen bases (34), total bases (172), and tied for the team-lead in games played and started (37). He hit safely in his first 27 games en route to a 28-game hitting streak and finished the year with at least one hit in 32 games, including 22 multi-hit games. His .436 batting average was the fifth highest single-season average in Royals’ history. Defensively, he did not make an error, handling all 60 of his chances cleanly and had two assists from his center field position.

For his career, he has started 72 of 73 games and holds a .390 batting average, including 14 doubles, two triples, and two home runs among his 108 hits, and has a .477 slugging percentage and a .447 on-base percentage. He has also driven in 33 runs and stolen 46 bases.

Story provided Scranton Sports Information