Monday, May 20, 2024

ORLANDO, Fla. – Two Great Northwest Athletic Conference student-athletes earned the NCAA 50th Anniversary Scholarship as the organization announced a total of 46 winners at the opening ceremonies of the Division II Festival on Monday.

The scholarship, worth more than $1,000, was awarded to Seattle Pacific University’s Hannah Hair and Northwest Nazarene University’s Brody Kemble. The two GNAC standouts were among 196 nominations that Division II schools submitted for the commemorative scholarship. The Division II Management Council Identity Subcommittee reviewed all finalist submissions, and awarded one female and one male winner from each of the 23 Division II conferences.

Recipients were identified by the committee to have exemplified the division’s ‘life in the balance’ philosophy through high-level athletics competition, academic achievement, campus involvement and community engagement.

A senior on the GNAC-champion SPU volleyball team, Hair was named both the GNAC Player of the Year and GNAC Defensive Player of the Year in the fall of 2023. Hair helped the Falcons claim their first GNAC regular-season title since 2011, as they went 22-5 overall and 16-2 in conference play to capture the crown.

Hair led Division II in blocks per set with 1.63, a figure that greatly contributed to her being the first player in conference history to claim both the player of the year and defensive player of the year accolades. Hair ranked fifth in the GNAC with a hitting percentage of .312 while averaging 1.66 kills per set and a total of 2.66 points per set. In addition to her on-court achievements, Hair earned academic all-conference for the third consecutive season as she holds a 3.89 GPA in finance/exercise science.

Kemble, a sophomore on the Nighthawks’ cross country and track and field teams, is fresh-off a gold-medal performance in the 10,000 meters at the 2024 GNAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships. Kemble won the event with a time of 30:46.90 on May 10 in Ellensburg, Wash., marking his first career GNAC gold medal. Kemble earned all-conference honors by finishing seventh at the 2023 GNAC Cross Country Championships in Anchorage, Alaska, and went on to finish in the top-40 at the 2024 NCAA West Region Cross Country Championships.

In his first year of eligibility for academic all-conference, Kemble earned the award in both cross country and track and field for the 2023-24 academic year.