'Hounds continue to receive honors

Recently, the Fort Scott Community College baseball team received academic honors from the National Junior College Athletic Association. In the past couple of days, other Greyhound sports have received recognition for team and individual excellence in the classroom.

Volleyball has been honored for its team grade-point average of 3.60 -- second-best in the nation -- while softball received recognition for posting a team GPA of 3.29. The baseball team was honored for its 3.37 GPA earlier.

The only volleyball team with a better GPA in the NJCAA was Central Nebraska, which posted a 3.61 average.

Four FSCC student-athletes received recognition for Superior Academic Achievement, posting GPAs of 3.80 or higher. They were sophomores Ali Cure and Kate Smith of the volleyball team and sophomores Reyn Sugai and John Morey of the baseball team.

Cure graduated with a GPA of 3.96 while Smith posted a 3.84, Sugai a 3.82, and Morey a 3.85.

Three other Greyhounds were recognized for Exemplary Academic Achievement, posting a GPA of at least 3.60. They were sophomore J.D. Drew and freshman Joe Hermsen of the baseball team, and sophomore Pierce Rienbolt of the men's basketball team.

Drew posted a 3.73 GPA, Hermsen a 3.74 average and Rienbolt, a Fort Scott High School graduate, a 3.63 average.

The NJCAA has established the individual awards -- which also include the Pinnacle Award for students with a 4.0 GPA -- as replacements for what was previously known as Academic All-American Awards. Over 1,600 NJCAA student-athletes met the requirements for individual academic honors, 169 of whom had perfect 4.0 GPAs.

There were 500 athletic teams which earned academic team accolades with GPAs of at least 3.0. Twenty-four of them were named Academic Team of the Year for their sport. Eight of those were from Jayhawk Conference schools.

Colby had the NJCAA Academic Team of the Year in four sports: women's cross country, women's half marathon, women's indoor track, and women's outdoor track. Dodge City was the ATY in men's golf, Cloud County in men's soccer, Butler in women's soccer, and Pratt in wrestling.

There were 74 other Jayhawk Conference programs honored as All-Academic teams, including the three Fort Scott teams previously mentioned. Only Johnson County and Neosho County did not have at least one athletic program honored.