Kent State Receives Seventh Straight AVCA Team Academic Award
7/22/2019 3:59:00 PM | Women's Volleyball
LEXINGTON, Ky.— The Kent State volleyball team has earned the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Team Academic Award for the 2018-19 academic year, the organization announced on Monday (July 22). The Golden Flashes have received the honor each of the past seven years and 11 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 boasted a team GPA higher than 3.45 in both semesters, which included the program's fifth term GPA of 3.6 or higher during the spring. Overall, volleyball student-athletes totaled seven President's List honors for achieving a 4.0 term GPA and 19 Dean's List honors (3.4+ GPA) during the academic year. Individually, Amy Kober was voted as a Mid-American Conference Distinguished Scholar-Athlete. Sam Jones, Lexi Mantas, Kaeleigh Stang and Natalie Tagala joined her on the Academic All-MAC Team.
Eighth-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 43 Academic All-MAC, 10 MAC Distinguished Scholar-Athlete and five MAC Female Scholar-Athlete of the Week honors.
Kent State's 15 student-athletes will report to campus on August 9 to begin preparation for the 2019 season. The Golden Flashes will host an exhibition match against Findlay on Tuesday, August 20 at 7 p.m. inside the M.A.C. Center and then compete in the annual Blue and Gold Scrimmage on Friday, August 23 at 6 p.m. The regular season kicks off with three matches at the Charlotte Invitational on the final weekend of the month (August 30-31).
