LEXINGTON, Ky. - The Appalachian State and Elon volleyball teams have earned the Game Plan/AVCA Team Academic Award the American Volleyball Coaches Association announced Tuesday. The two teams are the only Southern Conference volleyball programs to receive the prestigious distinction for the 2007-08 year. The two teams are just two of 70 Division I programs to earn the honor.

The award, initiated in the 1992-93 academic year, honors college programs that displayed excellence in the classroom by maintaining at least a 3.30 cumulative team grade-point average on a 4.0 scale during the school year.

The honor is another in the long line of academic honors the Mountaineer volleyball team has earned this season including 10 2007-08 SoCon Honor Roll members, six SoCon Fall Academic All-Conference Selections and two SoCon Student-Athletes of the week. Graduate Dianna Thomas was named to the ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-America second team, was named an NCAA Post-Graduate Scholar and also received the SoCon’s Dorothy Hicks Post-Graduate Scholarship. The award is the Mountaineers fourth in the last five seasons and fifth overall.

The Phoenix finished the 2007-08 academic year with a cumulative GPA of 3.393.  Leading the team was rising sophomore business major Sarah Schermerhorn with a 4.0 and rising senior and exercise sports science major Mandy Wilson with a 3.933. Shelley MacBean and Wilson were awarded for their efforts in the classroom by earning a spot on the fall Academic All-Conference team.  As a team, Elon received a perfect APR (academic progress rate) score of 1,000 to be publicly recognized by the NCAA as being in the top 10-percent of all collegiate volleyball teams.

ASU opens the 2008 season at William and Mary’s Tribe Invitational on August 29 against UMBC, while the Phoenix open play at the Hilton RTP/NCCU Tournament in Durham, N.C. against UNC Asheville also on August 29. 

A complete list of winners can be found at AVCA.org.