DIII Track & Field Scholar Teams of the Year & All-Academic Teams Announced

NEW ORLEANS – Scholar Team of the Year and All-Academic Team honors for the 2014-15 NCAA Division III Track & Field season were announced Friday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).

For the first time in the history of the award, which dates back to 2007, a single school – UW-La Crosse – has swept both the men’s and women’s Scholar Team awards for the indoor and outdoor seasons.

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As the highest-placing teams with at least a 3.10 cumulative team grade point average at this season’s indoor and/or outdoor NCAA Championships, UW-La Crosse stood out among 170 women’s teams and 99 men’s programs that combined academic and athletic achievement to earn All-Academic Team honors this season.

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

UW-La Crosse’s men and women were both dominant national team champions at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, while the women were also national champions indoors.

The UWL men finished as national runners-up during the winter.

All the while, the Eagle women maintained a cumulative team GPA of 3.40 while the men earned a cumulative GPA of 3.16.

Both teams led their respective genders in USTFCCCA All-Academic Individual honorees. Sixteen UWL men earned the individual honor, along with 15 women.

The women were led by indoor/outdoor field Scholar Athlete of the Year Bria Halama.

Halama won a pair of triple jump national titles and scored in the 400 outdoors to spearhead the Eagles’ women’s national title sweep.

The UWL women scored 73 points outdoors to finish well ahead of runner-up UW-Eau Claire with 43, and posted a nation-best 55 indoors to defeat rival UW-Oshkosh by a much closer six-point margin.

The UWL men scored 71 points outdoors to claim a decisive victory over runner-up UW-Eau Claire with 46, avenging their two-point indoor loss at the hands of UWEC, 62-60.

All Academic Teams

Saint Vincent Women, Amherst Men Earn Top Team GPAs

The USTFCCCA also announced Friday the 2015 Division III All-Academic Track & Field teams. A total of 170 women’s teams and 99 men’s teams earned the distinction as a result of earning a cumulative team GPA of 3.10 or higher.

Saint Vincent’s women led all NCAA DIII teams with a 3.65 cumulative team GPA, narrowly edging out Simpson (Iowa) at 3.64, Macalester at 3.63 and the 3.62 duo of Berry and Case Western Reserve.

Amherst topped the list on the men’s side with a cumulative 3.53 mark. Goucher was second at 3.53, followed by Middlebury at 3.50 and both Washington (Mo.) and Case Western Reserve at 3.48.

The MIAC was the lone Division III conference to reach double-digits in terms of team representation with 10 women, just ahead of the NESCAC with nine and the Centennial with eight.

On the men’s side, the NESCAC topped the list with nine member institutions earning All-Academic Team nods, followed by the the MIAC with eight and the SCIAC with seven.

The full list of All-Academic Teams is listed below in alphabetical order by team.