Swimmers Earn Academic Honors
For the second consecutive semester the Fairmont State women's swim team had the highest
cumulative grade point average of any NCAA Division II program. Released by the College
Swim Coaches Association of America Tuesday, the list showed only one collegiate program
in the country with a higher gpa.
Pat Snively's Lady Falcons combined for a 3.579 overall. Teams with a gpa of 3.25
or above are categorized as "superior" on the Academic All-American list. Only NCAA
Division III Macalester College ranked higher with a 3.60. The men were also named
an Academic All-American team by the CSCAA. Their 2.959 gpa was good for tenth on
the NCAA Division II men's list and earned them "commendable" status.
"It is nice for our women to receive this type of recognition," said Snively. "It
is tough for them to be outnumbered in a lot of meets and that gets discouraging.
They realize the value of their education and hopefully if we bring in several more
kids in the fall we will start to see real progress in the pool as well. The men are
in a little different situation. While it is nice for the men to be honored as well,
we hope to have them improve academically to try and match what the women are doing.
Athletically they are a little further along, but still have a lot of growing to do."
The women were led by Geri Angelova and Meghan Harpold; neither had lower than an
A. Nicki Stanley, Michele Knicely, and Rophe Woods each contributed a 3.5 or better.
The men were paced by Matej Tomas' 4.0. Jordan Lantz and Rod Hunte also added gpa's
of 3.6 and 3.7, respectively.
Aside from Fairmont State and Macalester, Eastern Michigan University was the other
team to lead a division. EMU led the women's Division I list. On the men's side, Yale
led the Division I list, University of Missouri-Rolla led in Division II, and Washington
University topped Division III. The CSCAA compiles Academic All-American team lists
for both the fall and spring semesters and the individual list at the end of the entire
school year.
