June 18, 2002

EASTON, Pa. (www.lafayette.edu) - May 2002 graduate Tye Gonser (The Dalles, Ore./The Dalles) closed his distinguished career at Lafayette by being selected as the Patriot League Baseball Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Gonser graduated with a 3.53 GPA, earning a degree in business and economics.

Gonser earned All-Patriot First-Team honors in his senior season, his best offensive campaign at Lafayette. He batted .356 to finish second on the team and fifth in the Patriot League in hitting. Gonser cracked a Lafayette single-season record 63 hits in 2002 and drove in 28 runs and scored 40 runs from the leadoff spot in the order.

The starting centerfielder played in all 45 of Lafayette's games and helped lead the Leopards to 12 wins in Patriot League play, the most conference wins in school history. Gonser batted .408 in Patriot League games and paced Lafayette to its first-ever appearance in the three-team field of the Patriot League Tournament.

Gonser, who was a career .352 hitter, achieved All-Patriot League Second-Team laurels in his freshman year when he batted .340 and his junior season when he hit .420.

The 2002 season marked the second in a row in which Gonser was named to the Verizon Academic All-District II team, honoring outstanding work in the classroom and play on the baseball field.

Consistently a dean's list student and Patriot League Academic Honor Roll honoree, Gonser was also a volunteer at Lafayette's Academic Resource Center and president of the Sports Marketing Club.

Gonser joins Bob Osipower '00, who claimed top academic honors in 1999, as the only Lafayette student-athletes to win the league award in the sport of baseball. Gonser is the 10th male student-athlete in school history to take home a Patriot League Scholar-Athlete Award.

Scholar-athlete nominees must have at least a 3.2 cumulative GPA and be a starter or key player in their sport. The winners are selected in a vote of the Patriot League's sport information directors.