Kent State Earns Fifth Straight AVCA Team Academic Award
7/24/2017 5:11:00โฏPM | Women's Volleyball
LEXINGTON, Ky.โ The Kent State volleyball team has earned the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Team Academic Award for the 2016-17 academic year, the organization announced on Monday (July 24). The Golden Flashes have received the honor each of the past five years and nine times overall.
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 on a 4.0 scale or a 4.10 cumulative team GPA on a 5.0 scale.
The Golden Flashes finished the academic year with a 3.37 cumulative GPA as a team and had two student-athletes named to the President's List for the spring term. Individually, Kelsey Bittinger earned Academic All-Americaยฎ Third Team honors from the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) after repeating Academic All-Districtโข First Team honors. Bittinger, Challen Geraghty and Lexi Mantas were voted as Mid-American Conference Distinguished Scholar-Athletes, while Darby Connors, Amber Gerdeman, Brittney Jakscht, Sam Jones and Drew Norberg joined them on the Academic All-MAC Team.
Sixth-year head coach Don Gromala has emphasized the importance of academics with his student-athletes, and each of his Kent State teams has been recognized by the AVCA as a result. During Gromala's tenure, Kent State has received 31 Academic All-MAC, eight MAC Distinguished Scholar-Athlete and five MAC Female Scholar-Athlete of the Week honors.
In May, the volleyball program earned its second consecutive NCAA Public Recognition Award for posting a multiyear Academic Progress Rate (APR), an annual scorecard of academic achievement calculated for all Division I sports teams nationally, scores in the top 10 percent of their sport. The Flashes have posted a perfect APR score in five straight years.
Kent State's 16 student-athletes will report to campus on August 7 to begin practice for the 2017 season. The Golden Flashes will host the annual Blue and Gold Scrimmage on Tuesday, August 15 at 7 p.m. inside the M.A.C. Center and then head to Ashland for an exhibition contest on Saturday, August 19. The regular season kicks off at the Cyclone Invitational in Ames, Iowa (August 25-26).
