ST. LOUIS – Bradley’s Bobby Atkinson has been selected as the 2025 Missouri Valley Conference Baseball Scholar-Athlete of the Year and headlines a group of 26 student-athletes named to the league’s first and second scholar-athlete teams.
 
Atkinson is one of five student-athletes on the first team with a perfect 4.00 cumulative grade-point average. Carson Garner (Murray State), Daniel Pacella (Illinois State) and Joe Ruzicka (Belmont) are repeating as first-team selections while Judah Morris (Illinois State) and Timmy O’Brien (Bradley) are first-team honorees after earning a spot on the second team in 2024.
 
Half of this year’s scholar-athlete honorees were seniors, while 12 of the 13 members of the Scholar-Athlete Second Team are first-time selections.
 
The criteria for the MVC Scholar-Athlete Team nominations parallels the College Sports Communicators (CSC) standards for Academic All-America selections. Nominees must be starters or important reserves, with at least a 3.50 cumulative grade point average as both an undergraduate and graduate student unless they are in their first semester as a graduate student and don’t have an established GPA. Student-athletes must have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at their institution.
 
The Valley's scholar-athlete team is voted on by the league's baseball sports information directors.