For the second straight season, UMBC's Cornelia Carapcea (Constanta, Romainia) has been named an Academic All-American by ESPN The Magazine and the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), the organization announced today. Carapcea, who previously received first-team All-District II honors, was a second-team Women's At-Large selection after receiving third-team accolades a year ago.

Carapcea, a tennis standout who graduated from UMBC as co-salutatorian with a 4.00 grade-point average in financial economics and information systems, registered 97 career wins in four years as a Retriever. A second-team All-America East selection in both singles and doubles as a sophomore and junior, Carapcea never lost in eight career America East Championship matches. A member of the conference's All-Academic squad, she received UMBC's Matt Skalsky Outstanding Scholar-Athlete Award at its annual awards banquet last month.

To be nominated for Academic All-America recognition, the student-athlete must be a starter or important reserve with at least a 3.30 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) for his/her career. No athlete is eligible until he/she has reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at his/her current institution (thus, true freshmen, red-shirt freshmen and ineligible transfers are not eligible). In the cases of transfers, graduate students and junior college graduates, the athlete must have completed one full academic year at the nominating institution to be eligible.

CoSIDA selects Academic All-America teams in 12 programs: football, women's volleyball, men's soccer, women's soccer, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, softball, men's track & field/cross country, women's track & field/cross country, men's at-large and women's at-large.

Eligible sports for at-large selection are women's bowling, women's crew, men's and women's fencing, women's field hockey, men's and women's golf, men's and women's gymnastics, men's and women's ice hockey, men's and women's lacrosse, men's and women's rifle, men's and women's skiing, men's and women's swimming, men's and women's tennis, men's volleyball, men's and women's water polo and men's wrestling.

In the at-large program, nominations are limited to three per school per gender. Thus, each institution may nominate a total of three men's at-large candidates and three women's at-large candidates. If an institution participates in both the college and the university divisions, it may nominate a total of three men and three women between the two divisions. There is no limit to the number of candidates that may be nominated for a particular sport.

Carapcea joins Boston University's Dan Schultz (men's soccer) and University of Vermont's Connor Tobin (men's soccer) as Academic All-America honorees from America East institutions in 2008-09.