Wednesday, December 12, 2012

PORTLAND, Ore. - Montana State Billings defender Jennifer Larsen has been selected to the CoSIDA Academic All-American women's soccer team.

Larsen joins a very exclusive group of GNAC athletes who have earned first team academic honors during the 12-year history of the conference.

She is just the 10th GNAC athlete during that time, including four women's soccer players, to be selected to the first team.

Larsen is a health and human performance major and carries a 3.92 GPA.

She is also one of eight athletes to earn CoSIDA Academic all-region honors this fall, including women's soccer players Jose Graybeal and Ali Martin of Seattle Pacific and Kristin Maris of Western Washington; men's soccer players Caleb Nyone and Blaine Carver of SPU and Justin Moore of Western Washington and Seattle Pacific volleyball player Shelby Swanson.

Led by Larsen, Montana State Billings was also among six GNAC soccer teams to earn the National Soccer Coaches Association Team Academic award.  The Yellowjackets won the award for the 11th year in a row.  The award goes to all college teams - regardless of the level - who post a cumulative team GPA of 3.00 during the previous school year.

A total of 739 teams qualified for the award, including 227 men's teams and 512 women's teams.

MSUB qualified for the honor with a 3.49 GPA.  Other GNAC women's qualifying teams included Saint Martin's (3.35), Seattle Pacific (3.31) and Central Washington (3.22).  Men's qualifiers included Seattle Pacific (3.24) and Saint Martin's (3.10).

GNAC COSIDA ACADEMIC ALL-REGION SELECTIONS

Women's Soccer: First Team - Josie Graybeal, SPU (D, Accounting, 3.75, Jr., Gig Harbor, WA); Jennifer Larsen, MSUB (D, Health & Human Performance, 3.92, Sr., Mesa, AZ); Kristin Maris, WWU (F, Biology, 3.84, Jr., Issaquah, WA); Ali Martin, SPU (F, Psychology, 3.77, So., Beaverton, OR).

Men's Soccer: First Team – Caleb Nyone, SPU (D, Physiology, Sr., 3.64, Happy Valley, OR); Blaine Carver, SPU (F, Business Administration, Jr., 3.91, Soldotno, AK); Justin Moore, WWU (F, Cellular & Molecular Biology, Sr., 3.62, Port Orchard, WA).

Volleyball: First Team – Shelby Swanson, SPU (Physiology, Sr., 3.89, Kennewick, WA).