Thursday, October 6, 2016

KANSAS CITY, Mo.  – Nine GNAC soccer teams were honored with the 2015-16 NSCAA College Team Academic Award released on Thursday. The recognition is awarded to teams maintaining a grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 or higher for the entire school year.

Montana State Billings, Saint Martin’s and Seattle Pacific all received the honor for both the men’s and women’s soccer teams, while the women’s soccer teams from Central Washington, Northwest Nazarene and Western Oregon also received the award.

The Western Oregon women’s soccer team had a 3.64 team GPA in the 2015-16 academic year, which ranked in the top 20 for all divisions of women’s soccer. Seattle Pacific had the best GPA of all GNAC teams on the men’s side at 3.45, which ranked 18th among all men’s teams. Davis Karaica and Jordan Kollars both represented the Falcons on the CoSIDA Academic All-American team.

The Falcons also had the second best GPA on the women’s side for the GNAC at 3.47. They were led by Shayla Page, who was the 2015-16 GNAC Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year and a CoSIDA Academic All-American. The Seattle Pacific men’s and women’s soccer teams were both GNAC All-Academic Team Champions for their respective sports.

Saint Martin’s was one of 222 schools in all divisions to have representation on both the men’s and women’s sides. The two teams led by head coach Rob Walker produced 3.07 and 3.46 GPAs respectively.

Montana State Billings is no stranger to the award. For the women’s soccer team, it is the 15th consecutive year receiving the honor. The men’s team also received the award with a GPA of 3.08.