USTFCCCA Announces Division II Women’s XC Scholar Athlete of the Year

NEW ORLEANS – Seattle Pacific’s Jessica Pixler has done it again. The junior from Sammamish, Wash. picked up the 2008 U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Women’s NCAA Division II Cross Country Scholar Athlete of the Year award, the Association announced on Friday.

Pixler, a standout for the Falcons, maintains a 3.914 cumulative grade point average and is majoring in English. She was earlier named the 2008 USTFCCCA Division II Women’s Cross Country Athlete of the Year, an honor she also won in 2007.

Pixler was this year’s NCAA Champ, winning the event for the second straight season. Since her arrival on the SPU campus, Pixler has swept the Great Northwest Athletic Conference championships along with the West Regional titles in cross country.

A total of 243 Division II female student-athletes received 2008 USTFCCCA Cross Country All-Academic honors, representing 101 Division II institutions. Seattle Pacific placed the most student-athletes on the All-Academic list with seven, followed by Harding, Missouri Southern State, and Shippensburg, each with six student-athletes receiving All-Academic recognition.

The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) had the most conference student-athletes on the 2008 USTFCCCA Cross Country All-Academic list with 35, followed by the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) and the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Association with 20 student-athletes each making the All-Academic list.

To qualify for All-Academic honors, a student-athlete must have completed at least 12 semester/quarter hours through the semester of competition at the institution to be eligible. The student-athlete must have at least a 3.25 cumulative grade point average and have placed in the top 30% of the total number of athletes eligible to compete at the respective regional championships, or in the top 50% of the field at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships.

Aaron Braun of Adams State is the 2008 NCAA Division II USTFCCCA Men’s Cross Country All-Academic Athlete of the Year.

The 2008 NCAA Division II USTFCCCA Women’s All-Academic Team