The College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) released the 2021 Academic All-America Teams for baseball on Wednesday, with Northwest Nazarene's Ben Johnson and John Gonzalez receiving the prestigious honor.

Gonzalez earned Second Team honors, while Johnson was recognized on the Third Team. They are the first Nighthawk baseball members to earn Academic All-America status.

The Nighthawk duo are two of the three GNAC representatives on the Academic All-America squads and two of five West Region student-athletes on the teams. With NNU's two honorees and Montana State Billings' Will Riley earning Third Team honors, the GNAC more than doubled the number of Academic All-America honors that the conference has ever received for baseball, bringing the total to five.

The All-America teams recognize the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances on the field and in the classroom. The CoSIDA Academic All-America® program separately recognizes baseball and softball honorees in four divisions — NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III and NAIA.
 
Gonzalez recorded a perfect 4.00 GPA over his first three semesters at NNU. He hails from Corona, Calif., and received his MBA in May. Gonzalez was also All-GNAC this season and was named the GNAC Tournament MVP.

With a cumulative 3.98 GPA in Pre-Med & Biochemistry, Johnson was also the NCAA Elite 90 Award winner at the DII Baseball Championships in early June. The Federal Way, Wash. native earned a Second Team All-Region honor from the NCBWA and was named First Team All-GNAC.

Along with Gonzalez and Johnson, Kyle Ethridge, Max Holtzclaw, and Colton Moore were also named Academic All-District by CoSIDA last month as NNU baseball earned the most All-District honors of any baseball program in the nation, regardless of division.