Franklin Pierce tied for top spot in the league with three teams being honored

Micaila Olson earned All-Region honors in the javelin, while also being named to the NE-10 Commissioner's Academic Honor to help the indoor & outdoor track & field teams win the NE-10 Team Academic Excellence Awards.

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RINDGE, N.H. (July 1, 2013) – The Northeast-10 Conference announced on Monday that the Franklin Pierce University volleyball and women’s indoor & outdoor track & field teams were named the Team Academic Excellence Award winners for their respective sport for the 2012-13 school year.

The award goes to the team in each of the conference’s 23 varsity sports that achieves the highest team grade point average throughout the academic year. Franklin Pierce tied with four other schools for the highest number of teams (3) to receive the academic excellence honor.

Volleyball, under the guidance of head coach Stephanie Dragan, earned the Team Academic Excellence Award for the second-straight year, as the Ravens combined to produce a 3.655 team GPA. That mark was the third highest total among the 23 honorees.

Fourteen (14) members of the squad posted GPAs of 3.0 or higher during the 2013 spring semester and were honored by being placed on the recent NE-10 Commissioner’s Academic Honor Roll. Among the 14 honorees were a pair of Ravens, sophomore Catie Swiderski (Rocky Point, N.Y.) and freshman Kristen Matuszak (South Glens Falls, N.Y.), who earned perfect 4.0 marks in the spring.

It marks the second major academic award given to the team by the league this year, as junior Natasha Ray (Colorado Springs, Colo.) was named the NE-10 Scholar-Athlete of the Year in the sport back in the fall.

The academic recognition comes on the heels of the finest season in program history in 2012, as the Ravens advanced to the NCAA Division II Tournament for the first time. Franklin Pierce totaled 19 wins overall, which were the most since 1993, and the 12 NE-10 victories established a program record for conference wins in a single campaign.

Natasha Ray was named the NE-10 Scholar-Athlete of the Year in volleyball in 2012 and helped the Ravens earn the NE-10 Team Academic Excellence Award in the sport for the second-consecutive year.

The women’s track & field program, under the guidance of head coach Zach Emerson, put an impressive cap to its inaugural season in 2012-13 with Monday’s team academic awards. Both the indoor and outdoor squads posted a 3.397 GPA to claim the honor in their respective seasons. The other fact that makes the awards so impressive is that 17 of the 25 members on the squad were true freshmen balancing college athletics and academics for the first time in their careers.

Twenty-three (23) members of the squad were recently named to the commissioner’s academic honor roll, which was tied for the highest total among any of the Ravens teams competing in the NE-10. Three of those members earned perfect 4.0 GPAs including Samantha Bureau (Ottawa, Ontario), Keri Marnane (Cranston, R.I.) and Jackie Price (Brick, N.J.). Bureau’s 4.0 was impressive considering she was balancing track while also playing a prominent role on the school’s women’s ice hockey team during its inaugural season.

The women’s track & field program produced several impressive performances in competition this year, including rookie Micaila Olson (Upton, Mass.), who earned all-region honors during the outdoor season in the javelin. Classmate Alyssa Lambert (Manchester, N.H.) took time out of her busy indoor track season to compete at the USATF Junior Cross Country National Championships in February, and rank as one of the top junior harriers in all the nation.

Several members of the indoor and outdoor track teams were also members of the women’s cross country team in the fall season, which last month was named an NCAA Division II All-Academic Team by the United States Track & Field/Cross Country Coaches Association.

It marked the second-straight year Franklin Pierce had three teams receive an NE-10 Team Academic Excellence Award, as last year volleyball, women’s basketball and women’s tennis each took home the prestigious honor.

For more information on Franklin Pierce volleyball and women’s track & field, please visit the team’s respective pages at http://athletics.franklinpierce.edu(.) To follow the programs even further, please visit Franklin Pierce Athletics on YouTube (www.youtube.com/FranklinPierceSports), Twitter (www.twitter.com/FPUathletics) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/FranklinPierceRavens). Fans wishing to purchase Franklin Pierce volleyball and track & field apparel can do so on the athletic department’s online store at http://athletics.franklinpierce.edu/store(.)