EMCC student-athletes earn top honors in academics with high GPAs
JACKSON — East Mississippi Community College has earned the MACCC’s 2020-21 All-Academic Softball Team of the Year honor by posting a conference-best 3.86 team grade point average during this past academic year.
As announced recently by the Mississippi Association of Community Colleges Conference, individual student-athletes, along with team academic award recipients, from the league’s 15 member schools were recognized for their academic excellence during the 2020-21 school year.
Along with EMCC’s softball squad posting the highest team grade point average in recorded school history, the Lions baseball team also established a new program standard with a 3.43 team GPA.
A total of 46 EMCC student-athletes in the sports of men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball and softball individually garnered conference academic recognition, with 23 earning Distinguished Academic All-State distinction (3.80-4.00 GPA) and 23 more grabbing Academic All-State honors (3.25-3.79 GPA). Rodeo is not affiliated with either the MACCC or the NJCAA, while EMCC’s football team was not eligible for MACCC academic honors this past year after opting out of the 2020 conference football season due to the pandemic.
Affiliated with the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (NIRA), the EMCC men’s and women’s rodeo teams combined to record a collective 3.24 GPA during the 2020-21 school year. Other team grade point averages registered by EMCC this past academic year included 2.97 by men’s basketball, 2.86 by football, and 2.75 by women’s basketball.
Individually, EMCC featured a new school record of 15 student-athletes who achieved 4.00 grade point averages during the 2020-21 academic year. That mark gives East Mississippi at least a dozen student-athletes with perfect GPAs for the third consecutive year.
Again, setting the pace for EMCC’s sports teams, eight softball players registered 4.00 GPAs in 2020-21, including the trio of Carrie Grace Baty, Jenna Coker and Lily Ramsey who completed their two-year EMCC careers with cumulative 4.00 grade point averages. Fellow sophomores Rylee Bourland and Kamryn Moore also boasted 4.00 GPAs, as did first-year players Aislynn Cochran, Kaitlynn Stroud and Taylor Watkins. In addition, the Lady Lions had 14 players from their 15-member team post GPAs of 3.47 or higher in garnering MACCC academic honors.
EMCC’s baseball team had 26 players collect conference academic accolades to match the mark previously set by the Lions football team during the 2019-20 academic year. Led by Ian Richard with a cumulative 4.00 GPA for his EMCC career, this year’s Lions squad also had Justin Black, Jonah Caskey and Zack Griffith earn perfect academic status with 4.00 grade point averages.
Rounding out EMCC’s list of 4.00 student-athletes for the 2020-21 school year were football freshmen Josh Aka, Tyler Hodges and Peyton Rodgers.