ENMU women tops in LSC academically

RICHARDSON, Texas — For the second-straight year, and third time overall, Eastern New Mexico University has claimed a share of the Lone Star Conference’s Academic Excellence Award.

The award, now in its fifth year, rewards a men’s and a women’s champion. The top LSC athletic department in each category is honored, and for the 2017-18 academic year, ENMU claimed the women’s award. Western New Mexico, meanwhile, claimed the men’s award for this year.

For the Hounds, it is the third such occurrence, as ENMU won the men’s award a year ago, and also won the men’s award back in 2014 — the first year of the award. ENMU recorded the top team GPA in four of the nine women’s sports, including basketball, cross country, and indoor and outdoor track. Six Greyhounds had perfect 4.0 GPA’s.

Eastern recorded a cumulative GPA of 3.636 in cross country, 3.531 in outdoor track and a near-identical 3.53 in indoor track, plus, a 3.514 GPA in basketball. The award winners are determined by a point system, with points distributed according to finish by sport, in those that the LSC sponsors after a conference-wide comparison of team GPA’s.

The member institution with the highest team GPA in each sport was named the sport’s Academic Champion, while earning five points toward the overall award. Meanwhile, runners-up got four points in each category, while third-place got three apiece. Any team with a GPA of 2.00 or better earned one point.

Finally, points for each member institution were totaled by gender and then divided by that institution’s number of programs in that gender, to arrive at the comparison value. While Eastern did not repeat as men’s champion, it did take two categories, including baseball (3.009) and football (2.692).