Skyhawks recognized for academic excellence in 2019-20
AVCA Announces 2019-20 USMC/AVCA Team Academic Award Recipients
EASTON, Mass. (July 29, 2020)– The United States Marine Corps (USMC) and the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) recently announced that a record 1,313 teams have earned the USMC/AVCA Team Academic Award for the 2019-20 season including Stonehill College's women's volleyball team. This year's USMC/AVCA number once again breaks the previous years' total of 1,126 and sets a new all-time high for this award.
The award, which was initiated in the 1992-93 academic year, honors collegiate and high school volleyball teams that displayed excellence in the classroom during the school year by maintaining at least a 3.30 cumulative team grade-point average (GPA) on a 4.0 scale or a 4.10 cumulative team GPA on a 5.0 scale.
The AVCA Team Academic Award is the single largest award offered by quantity of schools, players, and coaches honored. Since the 2000-01 season, the number of recipients have increased every single year but two. Since the award's inception in 1993, the amount of award winners from 62 to its current number of 1,313.
Over 2,000 different schools have earned the award in the program's 28-year history, with 11,878 awards given out total.
The Skyhawks join Adelphi University, Assumption University, Bentley University, Franklin Pierce University, the University of New Haven, Pace University, the College of Saint Rose, Southern Connecticut State University, and Southern New Hampshire University as the Northeast-10 Conference teams to make the list. Adelphi leads the teams with 11 honors, while Stonehill has collected five awards. Among the 241 NCAA Division II institutions that sponsor women's volleyball, a record 171 programs were honored for academic excellence across the country for the 2019-20 academic calendar.
Of the Purple & White, 11 players boasted a GPA between 3.00-4.00 in the latest NE10 Academic Honor Roll. Stonehill, under the direction of first-year head coach Craig Martin, garnered a 3.46 cumulative GPA over the two semesters. The Skyhawks were one of 15 NCAA Division II institutions to reach their Dig Pink fundraising goals through the Side-Out Foundation. The Side-Out Foundation is a nationwide movement to provide meaningful and impactful experiences for athletes while inspiring and empowering them to come together in support of the stage IV breast cancer community.
Stonehill wrapped up its 2019 season with a 17-10 overall mark and a 9-4 NE10 record, as they made their second appearance in the NE10 Tournament semifinal round in three years, following a third-place regular season finish. These records were the best for the Skyhawks since 2014 and they finished eighth in the NCAA East Region.
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