The Ohio Valley Conference announced that Southeast Missouri State is the recipient of the 2025-26 Team Sportsmanship Award for Baseball.
Voted on by the student-athletes and coaches of the respective sports, the team awards are bestowed upon the Conference squads deemed to have best exhibited the standards of sportsmanship and ethical behavior as outlined by the OVC and NCAA. Included in the areas for evaluation are the conduct of student-athletes, coaches, staff, administrators and fans.
The 2025-26 school year marks the 21st year the team sportsmanship honors have been awarded. This marks the fourth award for the SEMO Baseball program in the past five years (2022, 2023, 2024, 2026).
Implemented in August 2005, the team honors are the most recent addition to an awards program that recognizes and celebrates sportsmanship within the Conference. In 1998, the league established the Steve Hamilton Sportsmanship Award, presented annually to a male or female student-athlete of junior or senior status who best exemplifies the characteristics of the late Morehead State student-athlete, coach and administrator. Five years later, the Conference added the OVC Sportsmanship Award, presented annually to the member institution selected by its peers to have best exhibited the standards of sportsmanship and ethical behavior as outlined by the OVC and NCAA.
The sportsmanship recognition caps off a season where the Redhawks finished with a school record 39 wins en route to a second-place finish in the OVC. SEMO also finished the season ranked 47th in the nation in the RPI ratings, the highest ever finish in program history.
