SEMO athletes recognized for academics

Southeast Missouri State was once again well represented as the Ohio Valley Conference recently doled outs its annual honors for academic achievements during the 2012-13 school year.

Southeast landed 116 student-athletes on the OVC Commissioner's Honor Roll for achieving at least a 3.25 grade point average, including 19 who also received the OVC Medal of Honor for achieving a 4.0 GPA in a conference-sponsored sport.

The 19 OVC Medal of Honor recipients top the 18 who earned the honor last year. It is the Redhawks' most honorees since 2005, when 22 were recognized.

Southeast's OVC Medal of Honor winners were Jason Blum (baseball), Nick Niemczyk (men's basketball), Katie Norman (women's basketball), Brooke Taylor (women's basketball), Alex Zisser (men's track & field/cross country), Gloria Westlake (women's cross country), Breana Beine (soccer), Jacey Boyko (soccer), Torey Byrd (soccer), Ashley Geist (soccer), Amy Ward (soccer), Summer Burger (softball), Nikole Novikova (tennis), Brian Grote (men's track & field), Joel Krause (men's track & field), Alison Barker (women's track & field), Nikki Buchheit (women's track & field), Taylor Klump (women's track & field) and Meredith Stranges (volleyball).

Niemczyk (Bell City) and Burger (Notre Dame) are graduates of area high schools.

Southeast had the most OVC Medal of Honor winners in the OVC in soccer (five) while tying for the league high in women's basketball (two) and men's basketball (one).

The OVC also announced the recipients of 16 OVC Team Academic Achievement Awards, which are presented annually in each conference-sponsored sport to the team with the greatest percentage of its eligible student-athletes who achieved a 3.25 GPA or higher. Southeast women's basketball claimed the award in its sport.

Breaking the OVC Commissioner's Honor Roll down by sport, most of Southeast's representatives came from the soccer team, which placed 17 players on the honor roll. Soccer was followed by baseball (15), women's basketball (10), football (10), softball (10), women's cross country (nine), women's track & field (nine), men's cross country (seven), volleyball (seven), men's track & field (six), tennis (four) and men's basketball (two). Gymnastics, while not an OVC-sponsored sport, landed nine student-athletes on the honor roll.

The OVC also announced that a record 209 student-athletes received the Medal of Honor for the 2012-13 academic year. That surpasses the total of 178 last year.

A total of 1,224 student-athletes were named to the 2012-13 Commissioner's Honor Roll, also setting an OVC record. The old record was 1,063 set last year.

Track award

The Southeast men's and women's track & field teams both garnered All-Academic honors from the US Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association by virtue of their cumulative GPA.

Southeast's women posted a collective 3.30 GPA while the men recorded a 3.20 mark. The team award is given to all programs that notch a 3.0 GPA or higher. In addition to the team awards, senior Jill Schnurbusch [Notre Dame] and sophomore Kevin Farley were placed on the USTFCCCA All-Academic team.