Four East Mississippi teams and nine student-athletes recognized by NJCAA for academic achievement
For the third time in the last five years, East Mississippi Community College has earned the distinction of having four sports collect NJCAA All-Academic Team honors for posting composite team grade point averages of 3.00 or better. The 2014-15 NJCAA All-Academic Teams and Academic Student-Athlete Awards were announced Wednesday by the NJCAA national office.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – For the third time in the last five years, East Mississippi Community College has earned the distinction of having four sports collect NJCAA All-Academic Team honors for posting composite team grade point averages of 3.00 or better. The 2014-15 NJCAA All-Academic Teams and Academic Student-Athlete Awards were announced Wednesday by the NJCAA national office.
After garnering back-to-back NJCAA Softball Academic Team of the Year accolades the past two seasons, head coach Kyndall White's softball program again led the way for East Mississippi's athletic teams this past academic year with a 3.43 team grade point average to rank 14th nationally and collect NJCAA All-Academic Team recognition for the sixth consecutive year. EMCC's softball teams have now recorded composite team GPA numbers of 3.31 or better every year dating back to the 2009-10 academic year, including consecutive school-best marks of 3.59 and 3.58 in 2012-13 and 2013-14, respectively.
"We'd like to congratulate all of our athletic teams and student-athletes on another outstanding academic year in the classroom," said EMCC Vice President/Director of Athletics Mickey Stokes. "Having four sports maintain 3.00 team grade point averages or better is a tremendous accomplishment and demonstrates the diligence shown by our students, coaches, faculty and staff as a whole here at East Mississippi Community College."
Under the guidance of first-year head coach Benji Williams, the 2014-15 EMCC men's golf team claimed a fifth straight NJCAA All-Academic Team honor by registering a composite 3.09 team GPA. Among Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges (MACJC) member schools, the Lion linksters ranked nationally behind only Meridian Community College (3.39) and Copiah-Lincoln (3.22).
In addition, the EMCC baseball (3.08) and men's basketball (3.00) programs posted their highest GPA team numbers since 2009-10 and 2011-12, respectively. Guided previously by former head coach Mark White (now at Tallahassee CC) and now headed by Billy Begley, the EMCC men's basketball program was tied for 10th nationally in team GPA this past academic year and ranked second among MACJC schools behind only Southwest Mississippi (3rd - 3.13).
Just missing the 3.00 team grade point average requirement by NJCAA standards, head coach Buddy Stephens' three-time national football champions maintained a program-best 2.93 composite team GPA for the second consecutive year.
Individually from four different sports, nine East Mississippi student-athletes earned individual academic honors for the 2014-15 school year to give EMCC a collective total of 26 student-athletes having received NJCAA Academic Student-Athlete Awards over the past two academic years combined. Leading the way for EMCC this past year with composite GPAs of 3.80 or better to secure NJCAA recognition for Superior Academic Achievement were offensive lineman Jacob Feeley (3.92) of Picayune, softball first baseman Kasey Stanfield (3.91) of New Hope, baseball pitcher Nathaniel Willers (3.86) of Maben, and golfer Steven Eilders (3.82) of Ridgeland.
In addition for EMCC, NJCAA awards for Exemplary Academic Achievement, recognizing those with composite GPAs between 3.60 and 3.79, were claimed by Justin Lucas (3.67) and Evan Grimes (3.65) from East Mississippi's back-to-back national championship football teams, Drew Standland (3.79) and Malik Mayweather (3.60) off the Lions' MACJC regular-season, runner-up baseball team, and softball's Kristen Mitchell (3.64).