NATCHITOCHES – For the first time in more than a decade, a Northwestern State student-athlete has been honored as the Southland Conference's top senior male student-athlete.
 
Baseball pitcher J.C. Acosta has been named the 2026 F.L. McDonald Postgraduate Scholarship, which is awarded to the top senior male and female student-athlete in the conference. The award is presented annually to the league's top graduating male and female student-athletes who have the highest cumulative grade point average among their peers. The $5,000 scholarship must be applied to graduate study.
 
"This is a tremendous honor for J.C. Acosta, who embodies each of the qualities that make a successful student-athlete," Director of Athletics Kevin Bostian said. "His dedication to all facets of being a student-athlete at Northwestern State are beyond commendable. He exemplifies what we want our Demon student-athletes to be and is an example of the tenets of our department – finding success on the field, in the classroom and across the Natchitoches and Northwestern communities. I also want to commend our student-athlete development staff for working alongside J.C. to craft his application, and I want to thank the Southland Conference for honoring J.C. with this prestigious award."
 
Acosta, a Lafayette native and product of Teurlings Catholic High School, earned a pair of bachelor's degrees in biology and applied microbiology in December 2025, graduating summa cum laude with a 4.0 GPA in both majors. He is the first Demon to take home the McDonald scholarship since men's basketball player Paxson Guest did so in May 2015.
 
After the Demons concluded their 2026 season in mid-May, Acosta got a jump start on the next step of his academic career, enrolling at LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans where he recently completed his first summer session.
 
Acosta successfully balanced rigorous athletic and academic schedules throughout his career while also serving as a campus leader at Northwestern.
 
As an undergraduate, Acosta was part of the Demon VIP (Volunteers in Progress), working with service projects, volunteering at the NSU Food Pantry and with Move In Day. He also worked with the annual Special Olympics competition that takes place at the Walter P. Ledet Track and Field Complex on the NSU campus.
 
Acosta also worked in the Office of First Year Experience at Northwestern, helping provide a supportive environment for first-year students and connect them with the resources available to succeed academically and personally at Northwestern.
 
He was a member of the President's Leadership Program, a first-year organization that works to shape students into community leaders.
 
Blending his academic and leadership skills, Acosta served as a research team leader through Northwestern's Joint Venture Program (JOVE), a group of 40 students that do research in either biology/microbiology, physical science, engineering technology or mathematics alongside NSU professors.
 
Acosta logged more than 300 hours of research, presenting findings on "Phage Farming" at NSU Research Day 2024 and findings on "Effects of Prebiotics on Probiotics" at NSU Research Day 2025.
 
Acosta made a pair of appearances on the mound in his Demon career, tossing two scoreless innings with three strikeouts. Acosta fanned a pair of hitters in a scoreless inning against Grambling on March 3.
 
Finding the balance between athletics, academics and community service came with long days, which Acosta acknowledged his application essay
 
"There have been days when I am on campus from 8:00 AM until 10:00 PM, going to class, then work, and then baseball," he wrote. "These days are exhausting, but I know they will pay off in the future. I believe being involved in many areas is not about trying to do everything at once but about striving to use my time wisely to be the best I can possibly be.
 
"These long days will play a crucial role for me once in the medical field, where long days are inevitable, sleep is deprived, and time is hard to manage. It will be these long days that I will look back on to remind myself that I have done this in the past, and I can endure this in the future."
 
The scholarship was established in 1996 in memory of Dr. F.L. McDonald, a former president of Lamar University and a 1999 Southland Hall of Honor inductee. McDonald served as Lamar's president in 1963 when the Southland Conference was formed and is considered one of the league's founding fathers.