Winter Academic All-SoCon Team Announced

The winter academic all-conference team honors the sports of men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s indoor track and field, and wrestling. Each of the SoCon’s 10 full-member institutions had at least one honoree, while associate wrestling members, eligible for the team for the first time this year, accounted for 16 selections.

To be eligible for the academic all-conference team, student-athletes must carry at least a 3.3 cumulative GPA entering the winter season and were required to compete in at least one-half of their teams’ competitions during the recently concluded campaign. In addition, the student-athletes must have successfully completed at least 24 credit hours in the previous two semesters.

Eleven student-athletes have maintained perfect 4.0 cumulative grade point averages, including ETSU’s Adam Chase (men’s indoor track and field); Chattanooga’s Maddison Melchionna (women’s indoor track and field), Joanna Elmore (women’s indoor track and field), Helenka Kis (women’s indoor track and field) and Patrick O'Brien (men’s indoor track and field); Western Carolina’s Laney Browder (women’s indoor track and field), Lindsey Burleson (women’s basketball) and Erin West (women’s indoor track and field); and Wofford’s Jonathan Rice (men’s indoor track and field), Justin Whitaker (men’s indoor track and field) and Alissa Williams (women’s indoor track and field).

The 11 perfect GPAs match the winter record set in 2012-13.

The league’s nine women’s indoor track and field programs provided the most academic all-conference members with 68, followed by men’s indoor track and field (nine programs) with 44 and women’s basketball (eight programs) with 20.

Chattanooga led all schools with 27 selections, followed closely by Western Carolina with 26. Samford was third with 22 selections.

-www.SoConSports.com-