Track and Field places 19 on MVC Scholar-Athlete team

06/02/2011 | 12:00:00 | Track and Field

June 2, 2011

By Bill Ford
SIUSalukis.com

CARBONDALE, Ill. — The Southern Illinois track and field team had 19 athletes named to the Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete team as announced Thursday by the Valley.

Ten Saluki women and nine men earned the distinction, tying Wichita State for the most in the conference. The honor is given to student-athletes who have maintained at least a 3.2 GPA, are at least a sophomore in academic standing, and placed in the top eight at the MVC Track and Field Conference Championship.

The Southern Illinois recipients were as follows:

Women
Gwen Berry, Sr., 3.337, Psychology
Olga Ciura, Sr., 3.877, Aviation Technologies
Kim Fortney, So., 3.696, Communication Disorders
Tredene Gant, Sr., 3.750, Human Nutrition & Dietetics
Meredith Hayes, Sr., 3.552, Marketing
Megan Hoelscher, Sr., 3.816, Civil Engineering
Malaikah Love. Jr., 3.425, Dental Hygiene
Miracle Thompson, Jr., 3.589, Recreation
Emily Toennies, Sr., 4.0, Biological Sciences
Toni Whitfield, Sr., 4.0, Business Admin. (Graduate)

Men
Neal Anderson, Jr., 3.648, Criminology/Criminal Justice
Lucas Cherry, So., 4.0, Management
Jake Deiters, Sr., 3.467, Management
Daniel Dunbar, Sr., 3.730, Aviation Flight
Collin Otto, Jr., 3.505, Aviation Techonologies
Tim Robberstad, Sr., 3.851, History
Jeff Schirmer, Sr., 3.4, Accountancy (Graduate)
Quincy Shelton, Jr., 3.417, Accounting
Brad Wrage, Sr., 3.740, Mechanical Engineering

Southern Illinois also swept the MVC's Elite 18 awards for outdoor track and field with senior Toni Whitfield and sophomore Lucas Cherry taking the honors. Patterned after the NCAA's Elite 88 award, Elite 18 award is presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average competing at the finals site at each of the MVC's 18 team championships.

All of Southern's four Elite 18 recipients for the 2010-11 season came from the track and field or cross country teams. Emily Toennies was given Elite 18 recognition for both cross country and indoor track and field.