TOWSON, Md. — Senior Phoebe Wright of the University of Tennessee and senior Jessica Pixler of Seattle Pacific lead the 2009-10 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® Women’s Track and Field and Cross Country Teams, as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
Wright and Pixler have been chosen as the winners of the Academic All-America® of the Year award in the University and College Divisions, respectively.
Wright, who began her career as a “walk-on” at Tennessee, owns two world records (indoor distance medley relay and outdoor 4x1500), three American and collegiate records and five school records. A biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology major with a 3.96 grade point average (GPA), Wright is a nine-time All-American and a five-time NCAA champion. As a senior, she won the 800-meter run at the 2010 NCAA Division I Indoor and Outdoor Championships, becoming only the fifth woman in NCAA history to win both events in the same year.
Wright is one of 10 finalists for the Bowerman Award, presented to the top female track and field athlete in the nation.
A seven-time Southeastern Conference champion, Wright won the 800-meter titles at this year's indoor and outdoor SEC championships. A member of the Lady Vols’ SEC champion distance medley relay team, Wright was named the 2010 SEC Indoor Women's Runner of the Year.
A native of Signal Mountain, Tenn., Wright also has a second major at Tennessee, studying ecology and evolutionary biology. In addition to winning the SEC Scholar-Athlete Award for track and field, she was also honored as the SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year for all sports. Wright also won six career titles at the Penn Relays. She was a 2008-09 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® First Team pick.
The three-time NCAA Division II Cross Country national champion, Pixler is an English major with a 3.93 GPA. During her career at Seattle Pacific, she won 12 NCAA Division II championships, including the 1,500-meter run at the NCAA Outdoor Championship last 
month. It marked the third time in four years that she won the event. Pixler’s time of 4:11.06 on March 26 at Stanford ranked fourth in the world in 2010 at that time.
At the NCAA Division II Indoor Track Championship, she captured her fourth straight title in the indoor mile and ran the anchor leg on the NCAA champion distance medley relay team.
The recipient of an elite 2010 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, Pixler was named Great Northwest Athletic Conference Athlete of the Year in cross country, indoor track and outdoor track this year. During her career, she was named as the GNAC Athlete of the Year ten times. In addition to winning the award in cross country four times, she was the GNAC Athlete of the Year in indoor track four times and won the outdoor track award twice.
The native of Sammamish, Wash. was honored as the Seattle Pacific Athlete of the Year for a record-setting fourth year in a row. Pixler was also named the GNAC Scholar-Athlete of the Year and earned the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Athlete and Scholar Athlete of the Year award for the third straight year. She earned ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® Women’s Track and Field and Cross Country first team honors in 2008 and was chosen to the second team last year.
University Division Academic All-America® Honors
Wright is one of four Scholar-Athletes who are repeat first team selections on the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® Women’s Track and Field and Cross Country University Division Team. The 15 members of the 2009-10 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® Women’s Track and Field and Cross Country University Division first team have an average G.P.A. of 3.82. There are four members of the first team who have perfect 4.00 G.P.A.’s.
Graduate student Lisa Koll of Iowa State, the 2008-09 Academic All-America® of the Year, and senior Jenny Barringer of Colorado earned first team honors for the third consecutive year while senior Katie Stripling of Arkansas made the first team for the second straight year.
The first team includes two Scholar-Athletes who were named to the second team last year, seniors Amy Backel of Oklahoma and Angela Bizzarri of Illinois. Junior Whitney Carlson of North Dakota State, senior Caitlin Clancy of Tulsa and senior Whitney Kerth of Arkansas-Little Rock, who were third team selections last year, graduated to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® Women’s Track and Field and Cross Country University Division first team.
Seniors Jackie Areson of Tennessee, Carrie Burggraf of Austin Peay State, Heather Dorniden of Minnesota, Kylie Hutson of Indiana State and Liane Weber of Clemson join junior Kimberly Williams of Florida State to round out the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® Women’s Track and Field and Cross Country University Division first team.
Represented by Areson and Wright, Tennessee was the only school to have more than one scholar-athlete on the first team. It marks the second year in a row that Tennessee has had two first team selections.
Koll, a veterinary medicine major with a 3.82 GPA., received the Honda Sports Award for track and field in 2010, designating her as the nation’s top female student-athlete in that sport, and was one of three finalists for the elite Honda Broderick Cup, signifying the nation’s top overall Female Collegeiate Athlete of the Year. She is a four-time NCAA champion and an 11-time All-American. A native of Fort Dodge, Iowa, Koll is the only female to win four consecutive events at a Big 12 Conference Championship and she is a nine-time Big 12 champion. She is the sixth fastest American female in the 10,000 meters and set the collegiate record in March.
A political science and economics major with a 3.71 GPA, Barringer is a four-time NCAA champion who holds six NCAA records, seven Colorado records and one American record in the steeplechase. A native of Oviedo, Fla., she was the 2009 Big 12 cross country champion and NCAA Mountain Region cross country champion and a two-time All-American in cross country. Barringer is a four-time All-Big 12 honoree in cross country who earned nine all-conference awards in track and field. The winner of the 2009 Bowerman Award, Barringer is a two-time USATF champion, Olympian and World Championship participant.
A kinesiology major with a 3.95 GPA and a minor in psychology, Stripling is a four-time NCAA All-American, three-time Southeastern Conference champion and three-time All-SEC
honoree. She finished fifth in the pole vault at the 2010 NCAA Indoor Championship and 11th at the NCAA Outdoor meet. A native of Jonesboro, Ark., Stripling owns the school and SEC records in the pole vault and is a USA Championship and U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier.
Backel, a civil engineering major with a 3.98 GPA, finished her career with six All-Big 12 Conference honors after winning the 2010 Big 12 title in the javelin. She earned her second All-American honor this season with a seventh-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championship Meet. A native of Dillsburg, Pa., Backel is a four-time All-Academic Big 12 pick and earned the Dr. Prentice Gautt Postgraduate Scholarship from the Big 12. She was also named the 2010 Oklahoma University College of Engineering’s outstanding senior for civil engineering.
A molecular & cellular biology major with a 3.62 GPA, Bizzarri won the NCAA individual cross country title in November in a school-record time and was honored as the Cross Country Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. She also received the Honda Sports Award for Cross Country. A three-time NCAA champion in the indoor 3,000-meter run, Bizzarri finished her career with nine All-American honors and seven Illinois school records. A native of Mason, Ohio, she was named as the Big Ten Conference Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year and won four Big Ten titles, including the 3,000 and 5,000 at the indoor meet and 1,500 and 5,000 at the outdoor event.
A zoology major with a 4.00 GPA, Carlson won three outdoor and three indoor Summit League titles in 2010. She advanced to the NCAA Championships in the long jump and heptathlon where she finished 11th in the long jump at the NCAA Meet. Named as the Summit League’s Indoor Track Athlete of the Year, Carlson earned conference indoor titles in the 60-hurdles, 200-meter run and the long jump. She won Summit League titles in the 100-hurdles, 400-hurdles and long jump at the outdoor meet. Named as a U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-American, Carlson was also named as the Most Valuable Performer at the Summit League indoor meet. The Buchanan, N.D., native holds North Dakota State school records in five outdoor and three indoor events.
The school record holder in the indoor and outdoor pole vault at Tulsa, Clancy is a mechanical engineering major with a perfect 4.00 GPA. Named All-Conference-USA three times, the Tucson, Ariz. native is a four-time C-USA Academic medalist. A member of the 2009 All-Academic C-USA team, she has been very involved in the Engineers Without Borders program.
The most decorated women’s cross country runner in Arkansas-Little Rock history, Kerth is an economics major who holds a perfect 4.00 GPA. The winner of 10 Sun Belt Conference Runner of the Week awards in her career, she is the first UALR cross country runner to earn four straight All-Sun Belt Conference awards as well as four All-Region honors. During the track season, Kerth finished 10th in the 10,000-meter run at the Sun Belt Outdoor Championship. A member of the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society, she helped the UALR track and field team earn the Sun Belt Team Academic Award.
Areson, an ecology and evolutionary biology major with a 3.62 GPA, earned two All-American honors and qualified for the NCAA Cross Country championship three times at Tennessee. She finished third in the 5000-meter and fourth in the 3000-meter at the 2010 NCAA Indoor Meet. She also won Southeastern Conference titles in the 5000-meter indoor run and the 5000-meter outdoor run. She was also a member of the SEC champion distance medley relay team at the indoor meet. A native of Delray Beach, Fla., Areson is a three-time member of the SEC All-Academic team.
A political science and history major who has registered a perfect 4.00 GPA, Burggraf was awarded an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. She became the first Ohio Valley Conference student-athlete to become a two-time winner of the Steve Hamilton Award, which is based on athletics performance, good sportsmanship and citizenship. She won six OVC titles in her career, shattering her own OVC Championship record in the pole vault. She qualified for the NCAA Championship for a third consecutive season. A native of Marion, Ohio, Burggraf earned the John Burgess Awards as Austin Peay State University’s top graduating political science major. She owns the OVC records in the indoor and outdoor pole vault.
The most decorated track and field athlete to compete at Minnesota, Dorniden is the first Gopher track and cross country runner to compete in every NCAA Championship in a career.
A kinesiology major with a 3.95 GPA, Dorniden is a nine-time All-American who earned eight All-American honors in the 800-meter run and one honor in the distance medley relay. The first national champion in Minnesota history, the Inver Grove Heights, Minn. native won the NCAA Indoor title in the 800-meter run in 2006. A member of six Big Ten Conference champion teams, Dorniden led the Golden Gophers to four Top-12 finishes at the NCAA Cross Country Championship Meets. The recipient of an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, she is a 2009 Presidents Student Leadership and Service Award winner.
Hutson, a physical education and exercise science major with a 3.46 GPA., is a five-time All-American who won four NCAA championships at Indiana State. A seven-time Missouri Valley Conference champion, she won two NCAA titles in the indoor pole vault and two NCAA titles in the outdoor pole vault. The 2010 Great Lakes Region Women’s Field Athlete of the Year, she set an NCAA Championship Meet record in the pole vault as a senior, clearing a height of 14’-7.25” to defend her title. A native of Terre Haute, Ind., she is a member of the MVC Scholar-Athlete team.
A Health Science major with a 3.78 GPA, Weber is a two-time indoor All-American in the pentathlon who has won three Atlantic Coast Conference championships in the event. The ACC champion in the pentathlon and heptathlon, she set ACC records in both events. A native of Wangen, Germany, Weber led Clemson to both the ACC Indoor and Outdoor team titles, marking the first-ever sweep for the Tigers.
A native of Kingston, Jamaica, Williams is a four-time NCAA champion in the triple and long jump. In 2009, she won the outdoor title in both events. A six-time All-American, she won eight ACC titles and has been named All-ACC eight times. A sport management major with a 3.38 GPA, Williams was named the 2010 ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year, the 2009 NCAA Field Athlete of the Year and the 2008 and 2009 ACC Outdoor Field Performer of the Year. She holds Florida State records in the indoor and outdoor triple jump as well as the outdoor long jump.
College Division Academic All-America® Honors
There are five repeat first team picks on the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® Women’s Track and Field and Cross Country College Division first team. Seniors Hannah Baker of Wartburg, Mary Dell of Shippensburg, Katy Grant of Harding and Jessica Koster of Calvin are the repeat selections from last year. Graduate student Jennifer Hansen of Slippery Rock was named to the first team in 2007-08 before sitting out last year with an injury.
Pixler is one of three second team picks from last year who moved up to the first team in 2009-10. Seniors Nikki Arola of St. Thomas (Minn.) and Lisa Shepherd of Richard Stockton were also named to the first team.
Senior Kerrin Epstein (Gettysburg), a third team honoree last year, also advanced to the first team.
Seniors Lauren Brown (Winona State), Lauren Bucklin of Simpson (Iowa), Elizabeth Caine (Wisconsin-Stevens Point), Ariel Hubert (Rensselaer Polytechnic), Heather Miller (St. Cloud State) and Maria Monks (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) round out the first team, along with junior Darcie Schmitz (Fort Hays State).
The 16 members of the 2009-10 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® Women’s Track and Field and Cross Country College Division first team have an average G.P.A. of 3.95. There are seven members of the first team who have 4.00 GPA’s.
A biology major with a 3.98 GPA, Baker accumulated 14 All-American Indoor and Outdoor honors during her career. Last month, she ran for Wartburg’s 4x400 national championship team at the 2010 NCAA Division III Outdoor Championship Meet. A member of five national champion 4x400 relay teams in her career, she contributed to the Knights’ national championship indoor teams in 2009 and 2010 as well as their outdoor championship team in 2009. The Keota, Iowa, native has been accepted to UW-Madison graduate school for genetics counseling studies and is an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipient.
A biology major with a 3.97 GPA, Dell earned All-American honors eight times during her career at Shippensburg. The NCAA Division II runner-up in the steeplechase in 2010, she was also a member of Shippensburg’s distance relay team that earned All-American honors. An All-American runner in cross country, the Boiling Springs, Pa. native completed her career with 24 All-Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference honors and won seven PSAC individual titles. An NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipient, Dell helped the Raiders win PSAC championships in cross country, indoor track and outdoor track as a senior.
Grant, who graduated from Harding with a degree in social work and a 4.00 GPA, is a four-time All-Gulf South Conference selection in cross country. A three-time All-Region cross country runner, she won the 2009 GSC cross country individual title. A native of Mustang, Okla., she is a two-time NCAA qualifier in the steeplechase who set three school records. The winner of the Berryhill Award as Harding's Most Outstanding Senior Student-Athlete, Grant was named one of the Gulf South "Top Ten" award winners, recognizing the top five male and female student-athletes in the league.
Koster, a psychology and occupational therapy major carrying a 3.97 GPA, earned All-American honors in cross country while leading Calvin to a third place national finish. A native of Grand Rapids, Mich., she also earned All-American notice by finishing sixth in the 10,000-meter run at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Meet after finishing fifth in 2009. A three-time All-Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association selection in cross country who earned All-Region honors twice, Koster won the MIAA individual title and was the MIAA Performer of the Meet. She won three MIAA titles in her career.
A psychology major with a 3.91 GPA, Arola is a five-time All-American and ran the 400-meter leg of the NCAA National Champion distance medley relay team at the 2010 Division III Indoor Championship. She anchored the fifth-place finish of the 4x400 relay team at the 2010 NCAA Outdoor Championship. Arola is a three-time NCAA championship qualifier in four events and won a combined 21 conference individual and relay titles in her career at St. Thomas (Minn.). A native of Chisholm, Minn., she was a member of eight conference championship teams in her career and was named as Most Valuable Performer at the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference outdoor championship meets in 2008 and 2009.
Shepherd, holding a 3.92 GPA as a physical therapy major, is a six-time All-American in the high jump who finished third at the 2010 NCAA Division III Indoor and Outdoor Championship Meets. At Richard Stockton, she won eight New Jersey Athletic Conference high jump titles, earning four indoor and four outdoor crowns. The Mays Landing, N.J. native was named Stockton Female Athlete of the Year twice.
An English and political science major with a 4.02 GPA, Epstein finished third in the 10,000-meter at the Centennial Conference Championship Meet as a senior at Gettysburg. A native of Moravia, N.Y., she also qualified for the NCAA Division III cross country meet. The owner of the school records in the indoor mile and the outdoor 3,000-meter run, Epstein earned all-conference honors four times in her career. A member of the Pre-Law Honor and English Honor Societies and Phi Beta Kappa, she is the recipient of an elite NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship and will attend law school at the University of Maryland.
Brown carries a perfect 4.0 GPA as a cellular and molecular biology major with a minor in biochemistry. She was named as the 2010 Outdoor Outstanding Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. She won the javelin title at the NSIC outdoor meet in 2009 and 2010, receiving All-NSIC honors twice. At the 2010 NCAA Division II Outdoor Championship, she claimed All-American honors by finishing seventh in the javelin. A native of Madison, Wis., Brown was also a member of the Warriors’ volleyball team who was a four-time member of the All-NSIC Academic team.
A psychology major with a 3.84 GPA, Bucklin was an eight-time All-American at Simpson (Iowa). She placed fourth in the 100-meter hurdles and eighth in the 400-meter hurdles at the 2010 NCAA Division III Outdoor Championship Meet. The holder of the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference meet and school records in the 55-hurdles, 100-hurdles and the 400-hurdles, Bucklin also a member of the school record 4x200 indoor relay team. Named as the Most Valuable Performer at the 2009 IIAC Outdoor Championship Meet, she was a three-time Academic All-Conference selection. The Bondurant, Iowa native is a member of the Psi Chi, the National Honor Society in Psychology and graduated magna cum laude.
Caine is a biology major with a minor in chemistry who holds a perfect 4.00 GPA. She was named as the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2010. At the NCAA Division III Indoor Championship, she earned All-America honors as a member of the 4x400-meter relay team. A native of Plover, Wisc., she finished second in the 200-run and third in the 100-meter dash at the WIAC outdoor meet. Caine was the WIAC champion in the 100-meter dash in 2007 and 2008. A two-time All-American in outdoor track, Caine was the first woman in school history to win a WIAC title in track and field.
A certified emergency medical technician (EMT), Hubert was the captain of the 2009 cross country team that qualified for the NCAA Championship for the first time in school history. The biology major holds a perfect 4.00 GPA. She led the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute track and field teams to the 2010 Liberty League Indoor and Outdoor championships. A native of Newport, N.H., Hubert was an ECAC qualifier in two events. The recipient of RPI’s Leadership Award and the Ballesian Prize as RPI’s top student-athlete, she is a member of the Tri-Beta Biological Honor Society and will attend medical school in the fall.
The 2010 NCAA Division II Indoor champion in the pentathlon, Miller is a nursing major with a 3.76 GPA. A six-time All-American this season, she won seven Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference individual titles. At St. Cloud State, she holds six indoor records and two outdoor records and is also the co-owner of the school record in the long jump. The winner of 13 NSIC individual titles and 10 All-American honors over the last two seasons, Miller is a native of Sun Prairie, Wis. Recently, she received the Gladys Ziemer Award which is presented annually to the top senior female student-athlete at St. Cloud State.
Monks, a mathematics major with a 4.00 GPA, finished 13th at the 2009 NCAA Division III Cross Country Championship Meet to earn All-American honors. Honored as the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference Runner of the Year in cross country, she finished third at the NCAA Regional Meet. A four-time All-NEWMAC selection, she helped Massachusetts Institute of Technology win four NEWMAC championships during her career, including three cross country titles and one track & field. A native of Hazelton, Pa., she received the Alice T. Schafer Prize for Women in Mathematics. Monks is also a finalist for the Kispert Award given to top scholar-athlete at MIT.
A graduate student in special education with a perfect 4.00 GPA at Slippery Rock, Hansen is a six-time All-American in the pole vault. She finished third in the pole vault at the 2010 NCAA Division II Championships, one of only two athletes to clear the 4.0 meter mark. In her career, she won seven Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference pole vault championships as she won four outdoor titles and three indoor titles. A native of Charleston, W.Va., Hansen holds the PSAC overall and meet records as well as the school records in the indoor and outdoor pole vault. A four-time PSAC Scholar-Athlete, she earned her undergraduate and Master’s degrees in just five years.
An art major with a 3.87 GPA, Schmitz is the only junior on the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® Women’s Track and Field and Cross Country College Division first team. A two-time All-American, she won the 2010 NCAA Division II Indoor title in the long jump and was the runner-up in the triple jump. She also earned All-American honors in 2009 at the outdoor championship in the long jump and triple jump. A native of Baileyville, Kan., Schmitz owns the school records for the indoor and outdoor long jump and triple jump. She did not compete during the 2010 outdoor season and will return to the team with a full year of eligibility next year.
CoSIDA's ESPN the Magazine Academic All-America® Program
To be eligible for Academic All-America® consideration, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative G.P.A. of 3.30 on a scale of 4.00, have reached sophomore athletic and academic standings at his/her current institution and be nominated by his/her sports information director.
Since the program’s inception in 1952, CoSIDA has bestowed Academic All-America honors on more than 15,000 student-athletes in Divisions I, II, III and NAIA, covering all NCAA championship sports.
ESPN The Magazine – winner of the 2006 and 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence – is a provocative and innovative sports publication. Full of insight, analysis, impact and wit, the oversized biweekly with a circulation of 1.9 million looks ahead to give fans a unique perspective on the world of sports.
For more information about the Academic All-America® Teams program, please visit www.cosida.com/Awards/allamerica.aspx
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Dan O’Connell, Towson University
Academic All-America ® Vice-Chair For Publicity/Communications
(doconnell@towson.edu)
(410) 704-3102
Mandi Copeland, College of Charleston
Academic All-America ® Coordinator of Publicity
(CopelandA@cofc.edu)
phone: (843) 953-5287