Women's cross country squad named 2019-20 Academic Team of the Year
MacEwan Athletics
In a new world of social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are announcing all 2019-20 Griffins award winners online over the next few days. Here is our schedule:
Wednesday: Most Improved winners for each team (Find the story here)
Thursday: Most Outstanding winners for each team (Find the story here)
Friday: Team of the Year (Find the story here)
Today: Academic Team of the Year
Monday, March 30: Female Rookie of the Year
Tuesday, March 31: Male Rookie of the Year
Wednesday, April 1: Female Athlete of the Year
Thursday: April 2: Male Athlete of the Year
Our Academic Team of the Year award goes to the Griffins squad with the best combined Team GPA. In 2019-20, we're proud to report that 10 MacEwan teams boasted a GPA of 3.0 or higher – a testament to the priority placed on academics by our student-athletes.
Our winner is: Women's Cross Country with a combined Team GPA of 3.497.
Head coach Drew Carver's team of Shaunice Burgers, Ember Large, Cassandra Mastel-Marr, Emma Perry, Kiana Row, Bailey Stang, Emma Steele, Ashley Tymkow and Daniella Wasielewski continued to focus on their academics while maintaining a rigorous training regimen throughout the season.
"Basically, I know their academic studies has been one of the main priorities to everything they've done," said Carver. "They managed to keep the training and run as fast as they did and not let their academics slide – that's an accomplishment in its own right.
"To win Academic Team of the Year, that's even more impressive because I know all of the other teams are pretty strong and I know that each coach promotes the academic side completely as well."
The rigours of managing a full academic course load, while training and competing at a high level can't be understated for Griffins student-athletes.
Carver's team was full of stories of triumph in that area, too.
"Ember Large has actually ended up training a lot by herself due to the fact her practicums over-run our training time. That's a dedicated athlete. It's why she went to the Winter Universiade in cross country skiing (in 2019) because she's got to be dedicated to do this by herself. We've also got Kiana Row and Bailey Stang, who are dedicated to their nursing studies, which are very demanding.
"These three athletes alone have put in a lot of time and they've had to sacrifice. There have been some trips the athletes have wanted to go on, but they knew if they left to go, it would be detrimental to their education, so they didn't go. It was tough on them, but their academics is the main reason why they're there."
