Ten Goshen College Teams Named Scholar-Teams
Men’s tennis leads NAIA with 3.67 mark
Women’s cross country, women’s volleyball earn GPAs of 3.50 or better
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Ten Goshen College athletic teams received NAIA Scholar-Team awards for maintaining a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or higher in the 2016-17 academic year, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics announced this week.
The Maple Leafs were paced by their men’s tennis team, which turned in a 3.67 GPA, the highest mark of any of the 104 NAIA men’s tennis programs. The unit assembled by Evan Atkinson, first-year director of tennis, finished with the second-highest GPA of any team in the seven men’s sports sponsored by the Crossroads League. Only 56 teams in the nation in any sport outpaced the Maple Leafs.
The GC women’s cross country team finished with the department’s second-best mark, a 3.62 that placed them second among conference teams and 21st among their NAIA peers. The Maple Leaf women’s volleyball team posted a 3.50, good for 41st in the country.
On the soccer field, Goshen’s men finished ninth in the nation with a 3.36, coming within two-hundreths of a point of winning a mythical conference title in the classroom. The Maple Leaf women, which led the nation with 14 Daktronics-NAIA scholar-athletes in the fall for the second straight season, accumulated a 3.38 mark.
Six of Goshen’s seven fall teams were named NAIA Scholar-Teams, as were three of the four programs that compete in the spring. Seven Maple Leaf squads improved their GPAs from 2015-16 to 2016-17; four others fell off their pace by 0.03 points or less. (That margin represents one-tenth of the difference between an A and an A-minus.)
The Crossroads League saw every team named a Scholar-Team in three of its 17 sports, with only one conference school missing the mark in seven more. (The NAIA considers indoor track and field to be separate from outdoor track and field for this purpose.)
Goshen had 13 programs named NAIA Scholar Teams last year and 11 in 2014-15.
To receive the NAIA Scholar-Team award, the team must have a GPA of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale, as defined by the institution. The team grade point average includes all eligible varsity student-athletes.
The list of Maple Leaf Scholar Teams is below, with an asterisk denoting teams that improved their GPAs from 2015-16.
Goshen College 2016-17 Scholar-Teams
Men’s tennis – 3.67
*Women’s cross country – 3.62
Women’s volleyball – 3.50
Women’s soccer – 3.38
*Men’s soccer – 3.36
*Women’s outdoor track and field – 3.32
Women’s tennis – 3.14
*Women’s basketball – 3.13
Baseball – 3.08
*Softball – 3.03