Popovich Named An ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District Honoree For Second Consecutive Year
LORETTO, Pa. (Nov. 1, 2007) – Saint Francis University senior women’s soccer player Lauren Popovich (Rochester, N.Y. / Aquinas Institute) has been named an ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District II first team honoree, as voted on by members of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
Popovich, who is a senior accounting major with a 3.92 grade point average, has been named to the team for the second straight year, and will now advance to the national ballot with an opportunity to earn ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America honors. Saint Francis University has 30 all-time CoSIDA Academic All-Americans. Tice was named to the all-district second team.
Popovich is a team captain on the Red Flash women’s soccer team, for which she has started all 16 games she has played in this year, and every game she has played in the past three seasons. Popovich, who is a Saint Francis and NEC Academic Honor Roll student, has one assist on the season and has scored 19 career points (6 goals, 7 assists). She is a member of the first graduating class for head coach Brenda van Stralen, and has helped lead the team to .500-or-better seasons the past two years. Popovich is a very active member of the University and the surrounding community. She is the Vice President of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, is the sole student-athlete representative on the Athletics Strategic Planning Committee, and is a representative at the Athletics Advisory Board meetings. Popovich is also a peer tutor on campus, a member of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), which is a business organization on campus, as well as a Northeast Conference student-athlete representative, an accounting department Becker representative, and a volunteer for the Dorothy Day Center.
Popovich and the Red Flash are 5-9-3 overall, and 2-3-2 in the Northeast Conference, heading into their final two matches this weekend. Saint Francis will play at Wagner at 2 p.m. Friday before traveling to Long Island for a 1 p.m. contest on Sunday.
The ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District and All-America teams are selected through voting by CoSIDA, a 2,000 member organization consisting of sports public relations professionals for college universities in the United States and Canada.
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. 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.
CoSIDA selects Academic All-America teams in 12 programs: football, women’s volleyball, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, softball, men’s track & field/cross country, women’s track & field/cross country, men’s at-large and women’s at-large.
For more information about the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Teams program, visit www.cosida.com.