BINGHAMTON, N.Y. ? For the second-consecutive season America East Conference honors its women’s basketball student-athletes with the naming of a five-member All-Academic Team. The awards, which are garnered by student-athletes with exceptional athletic and academic achievements, were handed out at the conference’s annual awards brunch on Thursday (March 8).
Remarkably, all five members of the All-Academic team were seniors that appeared on either first- or second-team all-conference. The team included two Black Bears, and one honoree from Boston U., Stony Brook and New Hampshire. Overalll, there were two first team all-conference players on the all-academic team, Maine’s Bracey Barker (Bar Harbor, Maine/Mount Desert Island) and Stony Brook’s Jessica Smith (Bloomingdale, N.Y./Butler). They are joined by three second-team all-conference honorees. Barker’s teammate and fellow senior Ashley Underwood (Augusta, Maine/Cony), New Hampshire’s Danielle Clark (Corinna, Maine/Nokomis Regional) and Boston U.’s Katie Meinhardt (San Francisco, Calif./St. Ignatius Prep), who boasts a team-best 4.00 grade point average. In 2006, Clark and Smith were named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District team.
The All-Academic teams are a product of the June 2005 Athletics Director meetings. Faculty representatives and athletics directors from each of the conference’s nine member institutions decided to honor some of the league’s top athletes that are also quality students.
The All-Academic Team has been selected based on the student-athlete’s academic and athletic accomplishments. Academic achievement for consideration requires student-athletes to have a minimum cumulative grade-point average of 3.00 entering the season. Athletically, student-athletes are required to be a nomination on the postseason awards ballot, which is determined by the league’s head coaches. Team size for team sports is based on the number of athletes that participate in a contest at one time (e.g., six on the court for volleyball). In the event that the number of student-athletes meeting the requirements is greater than the number that participate in a contest at one time, all-conference vote totals were used as the tie-breaking criteria. Freshmen are not eligible for the all-academic teams and grade-point averages are taken from the semester prior to the competing athletic season.
Name Cl. Pos. School GPA
Katie Meinhardt, Sr., G, Boston U., 4.00
Bracey Barker Sr., F, Maine, 3.10
Ashley Underwood, Sr., G, Maine, 3.37
Jessica Smith, Sr., F, Stony Brook, 3.55
Danielle Clark, Sr., F, New Hampshire, 3.76