ALISO VIEJO, Calif. - Announced today by the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC), 150 Cal Lutheran student-athletes were honored with SCIAC All-Academic accolades during the 2016-17 school year, an increase of 24 from a year ago.
The SCIAC All-Academic Team recognizes student-athletes who have achieved a grade point average of 3.40 or higher and must have completed one full calendar year at their current institution. SCIAC student-athletes demonstrate the NCAA Division-III philosophy enabling a full collegiate experience, beyond the arena of competition and the classroom.
Prior to the 2015-16 academic year, the All-Academic Team was announced three times per year, once per season, and freshmen and first-year transfer student-athletes were not eligible. With the inclusion of first-year student-athletes the total number of student-athlete recognition has increased in each of the last two academic years.
From Cal Lutheran, 11 student-athletes were multi-sport athletes pushing the Kingsmen and Regals roster spot total to 161. Cortez Espinoza was part of both the baseball and football programs while gridiron teammate Cory Lee participated in football and track and field. Rachel Coleman was also a multi-sport athlete, competing for Regals swimming and diving and the women's track and field team. In the pool, George French and Liam McCallum pulled double-duty playing water polo and swimming. Finally, six runners lined up for cross country races in the fall and track events in the spring, including Lauren Chrislu and Sarah Parsons on the women's side and Christian Rider, Zachary Sergey, Daniel Tustin and Tyler Tvelia for the men.
All 20 NCAA Division III sponsored sports from CLU were represented with women's soccer leading the way by receiving 14 selections. Football, men's track and field and women's track and field all received 13 awards and women's swimming was next with 12. Women's volleyball finished with 11 as the final sports producing double-figure honorees. Rounding out the recipients in 2016-17 were women's basketball (9), women's water polo (9), baseball (7), men's swimming and diving (8) softball (7), men's water polo (7), women's golf (6), men's soccer (6), men's tennis (6), men's basketball (5), men's cross country (4), men's golf (4), women's tennis (4) and women's cross country (3).
A complete list of recipients by sport can be found in the SCIAC release.
Overall, the conference office recognized 1,405 student-athletes this academic year. With 137 dual-sports athlete, the league honored 1,542 roster spots.
Release: SCIAC All-Academic
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