July
20, 2009
(portions of this release courtesy of Dave Blanchard, Luther
College sports information director, and Mark Adkins, Wartburg
College sports information director)
CEDAR
RAPIDS, IOWA . . . Luther College's David McKay
(Iowa City, Iowa/Iowa City) and Wartburg College's Hannah
Baker (Keota, Iowa/Keota) have been named to the ESPN
The Magazine Academic All-America® Track and Field/Cross
Country Teams selected and released recently by the College
Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). Both were
First Team selections.
McKay
and Baker were selected from a pool of first-team all-district
honorees from eight regions. This
year’s ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America®
Men’s and Women's Track and Field/Cross Country Teams
each consist of 15 first, second and third-team honorees, for
a total of 90 athletes chosen for this outstanding honor.
Baker,
a junior sprinter who was a part of the Knights’ women’s
program’s indoor and outdoor Division III team national
championship sweep, earned four All-American awards in 2009.
She competed on Wartburg's indoor and outdoor national championship
1,600-meter relays and placed in the top-five in the 400 meter
dash at both meets.
In
cross country, McKay was
a three-time all-conference and all-region performer, two-time
All-American, and was named the 2008 NCAA Divison III Central
Region Athlete of the Year after claiming the individual region
championship.
In
track and field, he was a two-time all-conference performer
(top-3 place finisher) in the 10,000 meter run outdoors and
also earned all-conference honors in the 5,000 meter run indoors.
He also holds the school record in the 3,000 meter run with
a time of 8:35.94 set during the 2009 indoor season.
McKay,
also the recipient of an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, graduated
from Luther in May with a 3.95 grade-point average majoring
in Political Science with an Environmental Studies minor. Baker
is a biology major with a 3.97 GPA.
This
award is presented to student-athletes
who excel both in the classroom and on the field of competition.
They must maintain a grade point average of 3.30 or greater
and be a major contributor to their sport. Sports information
directors nominate and vote on the athletes selected. Since
the program’s inception in 1952, CoSIDA has bestowed Academic
All-America honors on more than 14,000 student-athletes in Divisions
I, II, II and NAIA covering all NCAA championship sports.
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