June 25, 2010

NAPERVILLE, Ill. - The Great West Conference has announced its 2009-10 Winter/Spring Academic All-Conference honors for the sports of baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's indoor and outdoor track & field, women's golf, women's tennis and softball.

Leading the honorees are 13 athletes who have achieved 4.0 grade point averages. Those individuals are Houston Baptist women's track athletes Erica Clark and Raquel Tidwell, NJIT baseball player Kyle McCarthy, North Dakota track athletes Sara Carpenter and Kristi Dahlheimer, women's basketball players Alys Seay and Mallory Youngblut and tennis player Emma Larson, South Dakota track & field athletes Nick Beare, Chad Pinkelman, Alexa Duling and Crystal Schiernbeck and Texas-Pan American tennis player Andrea Salvetova.

In all, 240 Great West Conference athletes were named to the team based on a minimum cumulative 3.2 grade point average. The athletes also must have participated in at least 50 percent of their respective team's contests. Using the institutions' most recent GPA, the student-athletes are selected by each member institution's sports information director, with approval from the faculty athletic representative and the head coach. First-year students and JC transfers in their first year of residence are not eligible for the award.

The 240 winter and spring athletes join 171 fall-sport athletes who were named to the Great West Conference Academic All-Conference Team for the 2009-10 academic year, bringing the total number to 411 Great West student-athletes who excelled in the classroom and were honored for their efforts.

"There is no question that we have quality student-athletes in the Great West," said GWC Commissioner Ed Grom. "I am amazed that there are more than 400 individuals who combine competing at the highest level of NCAA competition with succeeding in the classroom, which is the cornerstone of the NCAA. The drive and determination of our Great West student-athletes today, with so many distractions and other options at their fingertips, is very inspiring. I am proud of our academic all-conference honorees who are all winners in sport and life."

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