Eight Greyhounds & Both Cross Country Teams Receive Academic Awards from USTFCCCA

NEW ORLEANS, La. --- Moravian University has had eight runners named United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-Academic individuals and both the men's and women's cross country teams honored as an All-Academic Team by the USTFCCCA for the 2022 season.

Moravian's honorees were senior Rachel Byrne, sophomore Amber Poniktera and freshman Tara Smurla from the women's squad and senior Shane Houghton, junior Josh Mangini, sophomores Jake Farrell and Owen Nahf and freshman Bryan Kerchner from the men's team. Byrne is a psychology/sociology major while Poniktera is a sports medicine major with a focus on pre-athletic training and Smurla is majoring in psychology. Houghton is a computer science/user interface design major while Farrell is majoring in criminal justice and Mangini is studying health care management. Nahf is a pre-physical therapy major while Kerchner has not finalized his major yet.

To earn All-Academic individual honors, student-athletes must have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.30 and have finished in the top 25 percent of the finishers at the NCAA Division III Regionals last November. That group totaled 383 women and 320 men on the NCAA Division III level including the eight Greyhounds.

"This recognition truly stands for everything it means to be a student-athlete," commented Director of Cross Country and Track & Field Jesse Baumann. "You need to earn at least a 3.3 GPA and then finish in the top 25% of runners across our region. Only the top 7 on a team are eligible for this out of the 15-30 runners on cross country rosters, so there are very few who are even in contention for this distinction."

Poniktera placed 21st of 170 runners in the 2022 NCAA Division III Metro Regional with a time of 24:10 on the 6,000-meter course at DeSales University as she earned All-Region honors. Smurla also earned All-Region honors with a 25th place time of 24:16 while Bryne was 42nd in 24:55.

For the men, Nahf finished 14th of 176 runners in the 2022 NCAA Division III Metro Regional in a time of 26:20, while Houghton was one spot back in 26:23. Mangini took 16th in 26:28 while Farrell was 18th in 26:31 as the fourth Greyhound male to earn All-Region honors. Kerchner took 39th in the race in 27:04.

The women's team also maintained a 3.552 cumulative GPA after the fall semester and was one of 212 women's teams to earn All-Academic honors while the men's squad had a 3.301 GPA and was one of 189 teams honored. To be considered an All-Academic Team, programs must have a cumulative GPA of 3.10 or greater and also compiled a team score at the NCAA Regionals.

"Most of these student-athletes also work campus jobs and internships, participate in campus clubs for their major, or volunteer for other activities while they're training 48+ weeks of the year," Baumann explained. "It takes a special level of discipline and dedication to be a cross country runner to begin with, and then to be one of the top 25% in the region while maintaining a strong GPA is an incredible achievement. We're exceptionally blessed to have eight athletes who meet all these requirements and it's a reflection of why we had a lot of success with our distance team this year. We have a team full of devoted, dedicated, intrinsically motivated, high character individuals. It makes coaching them extremely rewarding."

To view the complete list of the USTFCCCA Academic honorees, visit https://www.ustfccca.org/2023/01/featured/2022-ustfccca-college-program-divisions-cross-country-academic-awards.