July 23, 2010

STANFORD, Calif. - Just more than two months after it made history, the Stanford men's volleyball team did it again. The Cardinal became just the 13th team in the history of the AVCA Team Academic Award -- including men's and women's teams in any division since 1992-93 -- to win the award and a collegiate national championship in the same academic year.

Stanford, which captured its second national title with a sweep of Penn State on May 6 at Maples Pavilion, had a team grade-point average of 3.54. Every player had an annual GPA of 2.85 or above.

Of the 20 players, 17 were over 3.0 for the academic year, 11 were over 3.5, six were over 3.8, and two -- Jake Vandermeer's 4.109and Ian Connolly's 4.002 -- were over 4.0, which can only be achieved with grades of A-plus.

Nine Stanford players were named to the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation All-Academic team, including all four of its All-Americans -- national player of the year Kawika Shoji, Brad Lawson, Evan Romero, and Erik Shoji.

In addition, starting middle blocker Garrett Werner won the Elite 88 Award, given to the player with the highest GPA in the NCAA Tournament.

Stanford was one of three men's collegiate programs to win the Team Academic Award, joining Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Stanford and Harvard were the only NCAA Division I teams on the list.

The award honors collegiate and high school volleyball teams that display excellence in the classroom during the school year by maintaining at least a 3.30 cumulative team grade-point average on a 4.0 scale.