2015-16 PBC Yearbook | Page 88

PBC YEARBOOK 2 5 10th women’s soccer player to be named All-Conference all four years of her career, she was also named a first-team All-American by the D2CCA and was named the PBC Tournament Most Valuable Player. She started in all 26 games for the Cougars with seven goals and four assists and anchored a defense that led the PBC in goals allowed average. Rolling is the second Cougar in the last four years to be named the PBC Scholar-Athlete of the Year after Kayla Brown won in 2013. She is the fourth CSU female overall to claim the honor. Y E A R S Columbus State Wins 2015-16 PBC Commissioner’s Cup 86 HILTON HEAD, SC -- Columbus State University was presented with the 2015-16 PBC Commissioner’s Cup on Tuesday night in Hilton Head, given annually to the best overall athletic department as defined by conference standings. The Cup is the fifth for the Cougars overall, the first since 2010-11. Lander finished second in the standings with Armstrong State in third and Georgia College fourth. Columbus State had an exceptionally successful 2015-16 season with conference championships in women’s soccer, baseball and men’s golf along with a co-championships in men’s and women’s basketball. The CSU women’s tennis and men’s track & field each had second-place finishes while the men’s and women’s cross country teams were each third. The Cougars earned 113.5 out of a possible 150 points for a .757 rating, more than four-tenths above their nearest competitor. Lander earns their highest Commissioner’s Cup finish ever with a .715 rating this season. The Bearcats were PBC co-champions in women’s basketball and, remarkably, finished in the top three in five other sports. Lander finished in the top half of the PBC standings in nine of their 10 championship sports. The PBC Commissioner’s Cup is determined by calculating the number of points possible to each school, given the number of sports they participate in, divided by the number of points earned during the year. Points are determined by placement in the final regular-season standings in each of the PBC’s 15 championship sports. Columbus State Wins Second Straight Presidents’ Academic Award HILTON HEAD, SC -- Columbus State University was presented with their second straight Presidents’ Academic Award at the league’s annual meetings in Hilton Head, S.C., on Tuesday night. The award recognized excellence in academics concerning all of an institution’s student-athletes. At the end of the academic school year the Peach Belt Conference asked each of the league’s 14 members to submit an average GPA for the undergraduate student body and a GPA for all student-athletes. These two numbers were used to determine each institutions’ GPA ratio that identifies which school’s athletes are performing most ahead of the curve in comparison to the student body. The schools are not measured against one another, just their athletes to their students. Columbus State had the highest ratio at 1.1684, and 13 of the 14 PBC member institutions the student-athletes had, on average, a better GPA than the general student body. The President’s Academic Award is part of a larger conference program to highlight the accomplishments of PBC student-athletes in the classroom as well as on the field. UNCP’s Perez Wins PBC-SunTrust Minority Postgraduate Scholarship HILTON HEAD, SC – UNC Pembroke track and field standout Janivette Perez has been named the 2016 recipient of the PBC-SunTrust Minority Postgraduate Scholarship. The scholarship provides financial support to a deserving Peach Belt minority student-athlete in pursuit of a postgraduate degree. “I am honored by this opportunity,” said Perez. “I am beyond thankful to the Peach Belt and SunTrust for choosing me as the scholarship recipient. To know that the Peach Belt and SunTrust are backing me up as I go forward into postgraduate work is a big deal to me and I am very grateful.” Perez graduated on May 7, 2016, with a degree in exercise physiology. A four-year athlete on the Braves track & field team, she set school records in the indoor 60 meters and outdoor 100-meter, 200-meter and 4x100-meter relay team. She also held the PBC record 2015-16