NEW ORLEANS, La. --- Moravian University has had eight student-athletes 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 2024 season.
Moravian's honorees were seniors Rachael Goodman and Amber Poniktera and junior Tara Smurla from the women's team and graduate students Casey Frank, Josh Mangini and Cole Stanchina, junior Bryan Kerchner and sophomore Gavin Hefferan from the men's squad. Goodman is an environmental science major while Poniktera is a health sciences/pre-physical therapy major and Smurla is majoring in early childhood special education. Frank is a mathematics education major while Mangini is working on an MBA in data analytics and Stanchina is working towards an MBA. Kerchner and Hefferan are both health science/pre-athletic training majors.
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.
"This recognition exudes everything it means to be a student-athlete," stated 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."
Smurla won the 2024 NCAA Division III Metro Regional title with a time of 21:40.86 on the 6,000-meter course at Stockton University as she earned All-Region honors and finished first of 182 runners. Smurla would go on to earn All-America honors after placing 29th at the NCAA Division III National Championships the weekend after the regional meet. Poniktera also earned All-Region honors, taking 27th in a time of 23:25.7 while Goodman finished 37th in a time of 23:45.2.
For the men, Kerchner finished sixth of 186 runners in the 2024 NCAA Division III Metro Regional in a time of 24:56.3 while Stnachina was seventh in 24:59.9, Hefferan took ninth at 25:06.4 and Mangini placed 28th with a time of 25:46.1 as the quartet garnered All-Region honors. Frank took 37th in the race in 26:02.0. Moravian won its first NCAA Division III Regional title at the meet, and then raced to a 22nd place team finish at the NCAA Division III National Championships the next week in the program's first-ever appearance as a team at the national meet.
The women's squad also maintained a 3.36 cumulative GPA after the fall semester while the men's team had a 3.44 GPA. 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/2025/01/featured/2024-ustfccca-college-program-divisions-cross-country-academic-awards.
