Kent State gymnasts score highest team GPA in program history
5/23/2013 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
KENT, Ohio – The 2013 season may have come to an end, but that doesn't mean the Kent State gymnastics team is done posting high scores. In fact, the Golden Flashes secured some history-making numbers just as the warm summer weather started to make its much-anticipated return.
With a spring semester team grade point average of 3.491, the Flashes bested the 2000-01 team's 3.490 mark in fall 2000 as the highest single semester GPA in program history. Fourteen student-athletes made the Dean's List with GPA's of 3.4 or higher en route to a cumulative team GPA of 3.500.
Kent State was the undefeated 2013 Mid-American Conference regular season champion with a 6-0 record and earned its sixth straight NCAA Division I regional appearance.
"I'm extremely proud of the young ladies in the gymnastics program and the emphasis they place on academics," head coach Brice Biggin said. "It's incredibly difficult to succeed at [athletics and academics] at [the Division I] level and they are doing it. "
Two student-athletes – senior Lauren Wozniak (Pittsburgh, Pa.) and freshman Clare Heisey (Chagrin Falls, Ohio) – post 4.0 semester averages. Wozniak, an early childhood education major who will be student teaching in the fall, has a cumulative 4.0 GPA and is on pace to become the first Kent State gymnast to graduate with a perfect GPA.
Wozniak was one of eight gymnasts to earn Academic All-MAC honors joining senior and MAC Specialist of the Year Rachel Guida (Cumberland, R.I.); senior Lindsay Runyan (Maineville, Ohio); junior and two-time MAC Gymnast of the Year Marie Case (Erie, Pa.); and sophomores Whitnee Johnson (Columbia, Mo.) and Amiah Mims (Indianapolis, Ind.). Sophomores Nicole Radon (Hamburg, N.Y.) and Kelsey Lawless (Lyndhurst, Ohio) earned honorable mention Academic All-MAC honors.
"As a coaching staff, we couldn't be more pleased with how our student-athletes have represented the gymnastics program and Kent State University," Biggin added.
