Southern Conference Announces Spring Academic All-Conference

326 Student-Athletes Earn Recognition for Academic Achievements

SPARTANBURG, S.C. - The Southern Conference announced today its Academic All-Conference team for the 2011 spring season. A total of 326 student-athletes, a record number for the spring season, were named to the team.

Among the 326 student-athletes were at least 20 representatives from each of the 12 SoCon institutions, participating in baseball, softball, men's and women's golf, men's and women's outdoor track and field and men's and women's tennis. The group recorded a combined 3.57 grade point average on a 4.0 scale.

Thirteen student-athletes have maintained perfect 4.0 cumulative GPAs, including Chattanooga's David Moore, Morgan Buchanan and Shelley Taylor, College of Charleston's Caroline Newman and Christin Newman, Elon's Virginia Mayer and Katelyn O'Dunne, Georgia Southern's Alessandra Dzuba, UNCG"s Ashley Schnell, Zach Reece, Alex Whitehead and Mikayla Rogers and Western Carolina's Morgan Turner.

To be eligible, student-athletes must carry at least a 3.2 cumulative grade point average entering the spring season and were required to compete in at least one-half of their team's competitions during the recently-concluded spring campaign. In addition, the student-athletes must have successfully completed at least 24 credit hours in the previous two semesters.

The women's outdoor track and field programs supplied the greatest number of honorees with 92, followed by baseball with 60 and men's outdoor track and field with 45.

Among member institutions, Appalachian State and Western Carolina paced all league schools with 34 members on the academic all-conference team. Closely behind was Furman with 31 student-athletes earning recognition along with 30 each from Samford and Wofford.