DI Cross Country Scholar Athletes of the Year Cheserek & Avery Headline All-Academic Individuals

NEW ORLEANS—National champions Kate Avery and Edward Cheserek added Division I Scholar-Athlete of the Year awards to the national titles they captured in November. The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country (USTFCCCA) announced the honors for the 2014 cross country season.

Avery of Iona and Cheserek of Oregon earned their Scholar Athlete of the Year honors by being the best individual finishers at the 2014 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships with a cumulative grade point average of 3.25 or higher.

Hailing from Newton Aycliffe, England, Avery is a junior studying marketing with a 3.48 GPA.  She’s the first Iona athlete to win the award.

Cheserek is a sophomore from Kenya by way of Newark, New Jersey; he maintains a 3.30 and is majoring in Business Administration. His honor is the third such for an Oregon athlete after Galen Rupp’s two wins in ’07 and ’08. The Pac-12 has now won six of the nine iterations of the men’s award.

The duo was among 153 women and 91 men in Division I who earned USTFCCCA All-Academic honors. Honorees must have compiled a cumulative GPA of at least 3.25 and have finished in the top 25 finishers (or 10 percent) at regionals or as an All-American at the national meet.

Two male athletes who qualified for nationals also had a 4.0 GPA: Nate Jewkes of Southern Utah, and Christoph Graf of South Alabama. The same was true for five women:  Victoria Voronko and Sofie Gallein of Eastern Michigan, Kaitlyn Benner of Colorado, and Avery’s Iona teammates Rosie Clarke and Tara Jameson.

Sixty-one men’s teams and 81 women’s teams had at least one All-Academic runner.

Wisconsin and Tulsa led men’s programs with four All-Academic Individuals apiece, while national champion Michigan State led women’s with six honorees.

The SEC was tops among women’s conferences with 19 honorees, followed by both the Big Ten and the ACC with 17 each. For the men, the Big Ten was far and away the best-represented with 15 honores, well ahead of the Ivy League’s nine.

Of the 40 All-American women, 31 also earned All-Academic; 15 of the men’s top 40 were All-Academic.

The full list of All-Academic Individuals can be found below.