PORT JEFFERSON, N.Y. -- America East honored its top team and individual accomplishments Tuesday night at the conference's annual awards dinner at Port Jefferson Country Club. Boston University's Marisa Ryan (Farmington, Conn.) was named America East Woman of the Year, Kristin Drabyn (Avon, Ind.) of UMBC and Ross Lohr (Newton, Mass.) of Boston U. were named America East Sportsmanship Award winners. Maine and and Vermont tied as the recipient of the America East Academic Cup.
Additionally, Boston University was honored for winning the 2007 Stuart P. Haskell Commissioner's Cup, which was announced earlier this spring.
Ryan of the Boston University cross country and track and field teams, was named the America East Woman of the Year. The accolade honors the senior female athlete in the conference who best exemplifies a commitment to service, leadership, athletics and academics during her career. Ryan, the first student-athlete to be accepted into Boston University’s seven-year Liberal Arts/Medical Education program, holds a 3.78 grade-point average and is on schedule to receive her M.D. in three. She had three top 5 finishes at the America East Cross Country Championships and qualified for the NCAA Championships in 2006 and 2007. She holds the conference indoor mark in the 3,000 meters (9:40.21), an event she won twice in her career. She also won the 5,000 and 10,000 meters at the 2007 America East Outdoor Track and Field Championship. Ryan is involved in nine different community service activities in Boston.
Lohr helped transform the philosophy toward competition, creating a team, rather than individual atmosphere, with the Boston University tennis team. In addition to his athletic accomplishments, Lohr is also active in the community, having founded the Newton Tanzania Collaborative in his hometown of Newton, Mass. With help from a high school economics teacher, Lohr established an exchange program between Newton North and Newton South High School and several secondary schools in Tanzania. The goal of the program is to engage the schools in cultural exchange activities, raise cultural awareness, and focus on issues, such as global poverty.
Drabyn is viewed as the best teammate on the America East Champion Retrievers. Whether posting positive quotes and comments in the locker room, helping tutor a player in a course subject or simply working as hard in practice as possible, Drabyn is always helping to make the team better. Beyond the court, Drabyn is a student mentor at a local elementary school, where she visits at least twice a week. She also spent Spring Break of 2006 in New Orleans, working for Habit for Humanity in its rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Katrina.
For the first time in conference history two member institutions shared the America East Academic Cup. Maine and Vermont saw their student-athletes maintain a 3.07 grade-point average. Vermont, which also won the Academic Cup in 1996, 2005 and 2006, is the first institution to win it four times. Maine earned its second cup.
Binghamton University (3.06), Stony Brook University (3.03) and University of New Hampshire (3.03) were other institutions to compile grade-point averages of 3.00 or better in 2006-07.
Vermont fielded teams in 16 of the 22 sports sponsored by the conference during the 2006-07 academic year and saw 12 of those teams post grade-point averages of 3.0 or better. The Catamounts had a pair of sport leaders: Men’s cross country (3.36) and women’s indoor track and field (3.26).
The Black Bears had 11 of 16 teams with a GPA of 3.0 or better. Maine boasted the top GPA in three sports: Men’s cross country (3.20), field hockey (3.38) and men’s swimming (3.09).
Maine and Vermont’s student-athletes are part of the more than 3,200 student-athletes who competed at nine America East institutions in the 2006-07 season. The conference’s student-athletes compiled a grade-point average of 3.01.
Albany men’s basketball (2.88) and volleyball (3.30), Binghamton men’s soccer (3.21), Hartford women’s soccer (3.26) and men’s golf team (3.31), and UMBC women’s swimming and diving (3.40) were America East Championships, who also posted the highest grade-point average among the conference’s teams.
Other sport winners were: Baseball, Binghamton (3.05); women’s basketball, Maine (3.20); men’s cross country, Vermont (3.36); women’s cross country, Stony Brook (3.68); field hockey, Maine (3.38); women’s golf, Hartford (3.25); men’s lacrosse, Binghamton (2.98); women’s lacrosse, Albany (3.34); softball, Stony Brook (3.32); men’s swimming and diving, Maine and Stony Brook (3.09); men’s tennis, Stony Brook (3.28); women’s tennis, Albany (3.72); men’s indoor track and field, Stony Brook (3.13); women’s indoor track and field, Vermont (3.26); men's outdoor track and field, Stony Brook (3.13); and women’s outdoor track and field, Stony Brook, (3.27).