ORLANDO, Fla. ? For the fourth straight year, University of Vermont, whose student-athletes boasted a 3.14 cumulative grade-point average during the 2007-08 year, has earned the America East Academic Cup, it was announced this evening at the conference’s annual meeting. It ties the highest grade-point average in the 13-year history of the award, which the Catamounts set in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 campaigns.
The Academic Cup, established by the America East Board of Directors in 1995, is presented to the institution whose student-athletes post the highest grade-point averages during that academic year.
University of New Hampshire (3.12), University of Maine (3.10), Stony Brook University (3.06) and Binghamton University (3.04) were other institutions to compile grade-point averages of 3.00 or better in 2007-08.
A total of 13 of Vermont’s 16 teams earned team GPA’s of 3.0 or better this year. The field hockey team posted the best team GPA among all UVM athletic programs with a 3.44 GPA, while the men’s outdoor track & field squad led all men’s sports with a 3.12 mark:.The Catamounts had three sports leaders,:men’s outdoor track & field, women’s soccer (3.39) and softball (3.30).
Hartford’s golf posted the highest team GPA (3.58) of any America East squad, while UMBC women’s swimming and diving (3.29) was the lone program to win an America East Championship and post the highest grade-point average among the conference’s teams.
Other sport winners were: baseball, Hartford (2.93); men’s basketball, Albany (2.89); women’s basketball, Maine (3.26); men’s cross country, Maine (3.51); women’s cross country, Maine (3.53); field hockey, Maine (3.49); men’s lacrosse, Binghamton (3.10); women’s lacrosse, Albany (3.38); men’s soccer, Binghamton (3.35); men’s swimming & diving, Stony Brook (3.18); men’s tennis, Stony Brook (3.24); women’s tennis, UMBC (3.49); men’s indoor track & field, Binghamton (3.12); women’s indoor track & field, Maine (3.34), women’s outdoor track & field, Stony Brook (3.38) and volleyball, Maine (3.37).
More than 3,200 student-athletes competed at nine America East institutions in the 2007-08 season. The conference’s student-athletes compiled an average of 3.02 on the team grade-point averages, which were calculated by dividing the total team quality points by the total credits completed for grade. The overall institutional GPAs were calculated using the same formula for all student-athletes at each respective school.
Vermont, which has won a conference-best five Academic Cups, also took home the award in its inaugural year (1995-96), while Hartford was the winner in 1996-97. New Hampshire won the Academic Cup in 1998-99 and 1999-2000 and Binghamton garnered the cup in its first two years in the conference (2001-02, 2002-03). Maine, which shared the cup with Vermont last year, also won the honor in 2003-04.