May 12, 2005

LAS VEGAS - Zeke Parraz is having a career year on the field and on Thursday he was honored for his work off of it as he was named to the 2005 ESPN The Magazine District 8 All-Academic second team.

This is the first ESPN The Magazine academic honor for Parraz, who is originally from Henderson, Nev., and prepped at Green Valley High School. He currently has a 3.39 GPA and is majoring in sociology. On the field Parraz is hitting .356 (67-188) with seven home runs and 56 RBI.

Three-time selection Gregg Wallis of UC Irvine leads the first team and 10 of the 11 players on the first team are represented by 10 different universities. Only Arizona State, with Erik Averill and Travis Buck, garnered more than one first team selection.

The all-academic squad was voted on by CoSIDA members from within the District 8 states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington and the province of British Columbia. The district selections advance to the national ballot, which will be released May 31.