Wednesday, May 22, 2024
by Evan O'Kelly, Assistant Commissioner For Communications

PORTLAND, Ore. – A total of 92 Great Northwest Athletic Conference men’s track & field student-athletes claimed academic all-conference honors presented by Barnes & Noble College for the 2023-24 year as announced by the conference office on Wednesday.

To qualify for the GNAC all-academic teams, nominees must be of sophomore eligibility or greater, have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.20 or greater on a 4.00 scale, be on the team roster for the full season and must be in their second year at the nominating institution.

Among the recipients, eight carried perfect 4.0 grade point averages including four seniors. The Western Oregon senior trio of Rami Dear, Dustyn McKenney and JJ Walker as well as Alaska Anchorage senior Michael Zapherson headlined the academic all-conference list with perfect GPAs.

Nine seniors also had the rare distinction of winning the award for the fourth time in their careers, including the Western Washington quartet of Kevin McDermott, Drew Weber, Ryan Greenwalt and Andrew Oslin. Andrew Schulz and Landon Armstrong of Saint Martin’s, David Njeri of Seattle Pacific, Ephrem Mekonnen of Simon Fraser and Garrett Hough of Central Washington were the other fourth-year honorees.

2024 Men’s Track & Field Academic All-GNAC Team presented by Barnes & Noble College

Total Selections: 92 | 4th year – 9 | 3rd year – 14 | 2nd year – 23 | 1st year - 46

*-2023 selection | #-2022 selection | !-2021 selection

Western Washington led all GNAC teams with 25 academic all-conference selections, while Northwest Nazarene totaled 18 and Western Oregon had 17 selections.

The 2024 NCAA Track & Field Championships are set for May 23-25 at Welch Stadium in Emporia, Kansas.