Catamount Volleyball Receives AVCA Team Academic Award for Second Straight Season

By Gregory Hartlage

The Western Carolina volleyball team received the USMC/American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) 2022-23 Team Academic Award, the organization announced on Thursday afternoon. The Catamounts are also one of only two Southern Conference schools to be named to the Team Academic Honor Roll, which is a representation of the Top 20% of team GPAs in each NCAA Division. This marks the ninth straight season and the 13th time overall that the Catamounts have been honored, joining a record-setting 1,332 schools to receive the award this year. Initiated in the 1992-93 academic year, the award honors collegiate and high school volleyball teams that displayed excellence in the classroom during the school year by maintaining at least a 3.30 cumulative team grade-point average on a 4.0 scale or a 4.10 cumulative team GPA on a 5.0 scale. As a team, the Catamounts compiled a 3.70 GPA for the 2022-23 academic year. The individual academic highlights for the Catamounts from last year include Julia Gardon and Bailey Hartsough, who were two of 19 WCU student-athletes to attain a perfect 4.0 cumulative GPA this past academic year. Gardon and Hartsough were joined on the league's All-Academic team by Sydney Carlson, Destinee Dorsey, Merry Gebel, Ollie Henderson, Sarah Janourova, Brooklyn Poling, Eden Punch, Johnna Robinson, Ali Schreiber, Livi Weidmann. Carlson, Punch, Hartsough, and Gebel also received College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District honors in 2022. Combined, 11 Catamounts were named to the WCU Chancellor's List in either the Fall 2022 or Spring 2023 semester with Lydia Clark, Erin Carpenter, and Ali Morris joining those recognized above. In addition to WCU, other SoCon members that earned the AVCA Team Academic Award in 2022-23 include ETSU, Furman, Wofford, and The Citadel.