June 12, 2008
Men's At-Large Academic All-America
Women's At-Large Academic All-America
Center Valley, Pa. - Three Patriot League student-athletes earned a spot on the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Team for at-large sports, as Navy senior golfer Chris Renninger and junior swimmer Kelly Zahalka received first-team honors and Lehigh senior field hockey and women's lacrosse standout Christy Smith was selected to the third team. The teams were selected and released by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
The selections bring the Patriot League's total of ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America honorees to 12 for the 2007-08 campaign. Renninger and Zahalka are the fourth and fifth first-team Academic All-Americans this year, joining Bucknell's Jason Buursma (baseball), Army's Daniel Newell (men's soccer) and Navy's Kari Weniger (women's soccer). The final Academic All-America lists, for men's and women's track and field/cross country, will be announced later this month.
Ranked No. 1 in the academic order of merit and fifth overall among his class of more than 1,000 students, golf team captain Renninger boasts a 4.00 cumulative grade-point average in chemistry. He was named the Patriot League's Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year and a second-team Academic All-American in 2007, and has earned consecutive Patriot League Golf Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors. Renninger also capped a stellar career on the course with a strong senior season in which he led the Mids to their first Patriot League title and NCAA Regional appearance since 2003. Renninger received a medical corps billet and will be attending the Stanford University School of Medicine next fall.
Zahalka has achieved a 4.00 GPA during each of her six completed semesters at Navy and is ranked third in her class on the Academy's Overall Order of Merit (a combination of academic and military rankings). She was named a third-team Academic All-American in 2007, and has won the last two Patriot League Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors in women's swimming. Zahalka recently was selected as one of 65 national recipients of a Truman Scholarship based upon "leadership potential, intellectual ability and likelihood of making a difference." Zahalka also garnered Patriot League Swimmer of the Year recognition in 2007, and has totaled six individual event and four relay event titles during her career at the Patriot League Championship. She holds the League record in the 400 individual medley.
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Smith starred in both field hockey and lacrosse during her accomplished Patriot League career for the Mountain Hawks. An integrated business and industrial engineering major, Smith recently graduated from Lehigh with an overall grade point average of 3.89. She was honored as the Lehigh Athletic Department's Graduating Scholar Athlete Award winner in April, the highest honor given out by the department. Smith is a multi-year member of the Dean's List, the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll, and the NFHCA All-Academic Team. She was named the 2007 Patriot League Field Hockey Offensive Player of the Year after scoring eight goals, including the game winner in all three of the Mountain Hawks Patriot League victories this season, to go along with five assists, 21 points, and 53 shots. On the lacrosse field, Smith is a two-time All-Patriot League selection who scored 88 goals during her four years in the Brown and White.
The at-large team includes athletes from the Patriot League sports of golf (m), lacrosse (m and w), field hockey, rowing (w), swimming (m and w) and tennis (m and w), and also represents athletes participating in bowling (w) fencing (m/w), golf (w), gymnastics (m/w), ice hockey (m/w), rifle (m/w), skiing (m/w), volleyball (m), water polo (m/w) and wrestling (m).
To be eligible, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.20 on a scale of 4.00, have reached sophomore athletic and academic standings at his/her current institution and be nominated by his/her sports information director. First-team honorees from the at-large Academic All-District teams were on the ballot for All-America honors.
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, III and NAIA covering all NCAA championship sports.
