Sunday, June 25, 2023
by Western Washington Athletic Communications

BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Western Washington University senior rowing student-athlete Clarice Ruhlin-Hicks added another academic award to her already impressive collection by being selected to the 2022-23 Academic All-America® Women’s At-Large teams as selected by College Sports Communicators (CSC).

Ruhlin-Hicks was a second-team selection to the prestigious team becoming WWU’s 26th Academic All-America selection across all sports. She is the first rowing Academic All-American for Western Washington since Megan Northey in 2012.

The most recent academic award will have a spot next to a large collection of honors Ruhlin-Hicks has won during her career as a student-athlete. Not only has Ruhlin-Hicks been a standout for the Vikings national-prominent rowing program, but has collected nearly every academic honor available.

Ruhlin-Hicks graduated in June from WWU with a perfect 4.00 GPA as a political science major. She was a three-time All-GNAC Academic selection and two-time WWU Scholar Athlete of the Year. Ruhlin-Hicks recently was also recently selected as the 2022-23 GNAC Scholar Athlete of the Year and won the NCAA Elite 90 Award each of the last two seasons at the NCAA Rowing Championships.

Ruhlin-Hicks was one of three student-athletes from GNAC institutions to be named to the CSC Academic All-America At-Large Team. Alaska senior Sara Karasova (rifle) was named to the first team while Alaska Anchorage senior Tuva Bygrave (skiing) was named to the third team.

Nominees to the CSC Academic All-District Teams must be of sophomore standing or greater, be a starter or important reserve on their team with a minimum GPA of 3.50 or greater and must have participated in at least 50 percent of their team’s contests.

In a change to the program for 2022-23, all nominees who met the selection and were nominated by their institutions were named to the Academic All-District Teams. Institutions could nominate a maximum of five players per gender for the at-large teams.