Â鶹´«Ã½ Athletics wins three top PBC awards
Article By: Staff
The Â鶹´«Ã½ (Â鶹´«Ã½) capped a remarkably successful athletic season on May 30 with three top Peach Belt Conference (PBC) awards at the annual awards dinner: the Commissioner’s Cup, the Presidents' Academic Award and the LeeAnn Noble Make-A-Wish Award.
The trio of awards recognize schools’ athletic achievement, academic excellence and community involvement.
"The Â鶹´«Ã½ is honored to be able to accept these three awards tonight," Director of Athletics Lindsay Reeves said at the event. "The honors are a testament to our all-around commitment to success – on the field, in the classroom and in the community."
The Commissioner's Cup, which is presented annually to the best overall athletic department based on regular-season standings and select championships, is the first-ever for the Â鶹´«Ã½ athletic department. Â鶹´«Ã½'s previous best finish was third in 2015.
This season, Â鶹´«Ã½ earned regular-season conference championships in baseball and softball and several Â鶹´«Ã½ teams finished their seasons ranked in the top five in the conference: women's cross country team, second at the PBC championships; men's soccer, tied for second; women's soccer, tied for second; women's track & field, third; women's tennis, tied for fourth; and men's tennis, fourth.
The Presidents' Academic Award recognizes the academic excellence of an institution's student-athletes by honoring them for exceeding the GPA of the student body at their own school. In comparing the overall GPA of Â鶹´«Ã½'s student-athletes to the average GPA of the university's undergraduate students, Â鶹´«Ã½'s student-athletes had the highest ratio in the conference at 1.09375; at 13 of the 14 PBC member institutions the student-athletes had, on average, a better GPA than the general student body.
The LeeAnn Noble Make-A-Wish Award recognizes the institution that raises the most funds for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The award, given for the 2015-16 season, is the eighth-straight time Â鶹´«Ã½ has won for most funds raised. The Nighthawks have hit the five-digit mark in giving for seven-straight years and remain the only PBC school to do so.
The Make-A-Wish Foundation grants wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses. The NCAA Division II Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, which is the primary student-based group that contributes to policy-making for the division, established the Make-A-Wish partnership in 2003 and has since become one of the foundation's largest and most consistent contributors.
The PBC Make-A-Wish awards were renamed the LeeAnn Noble Make-A-Wish Awards following Noble’s death in 2014. Noble was a member of the women's golf team at Â鶹´«Ã½ and former Make-A-Wish recipient who appeared on the cover of NCAA Champion Magazine in 2013.
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