MALIBU, California " Katherine Zhu of the Pepperdine women's golf team earned her second straight appearance on the West Coast Conference's All-Academic first team, the league office announced today.

Zhu (Vancouver, B.C./Zhuji Hailiang Private School), a junior international studies major with a 3.56 grade-point average, has the Waves' second-best scoring average (74.29) this season.

In order to qualify for a WCC All-Academic team, student-athletes must have a minimum 3.2 GPA, have participated in at least 50 percent of the season's events and have at least sophomore athletic and academic standing.

Zhu has played at all nine events this season and has posted three top-20 finishes, including a fourth-place result at the Golfweek Conference Challenge. She is 160th in Golfstat's national rankings, which is second-best among the Waves and sixth-best among WCC players.

In addition to earning 2016 WCC All-Academic first team honors, she has been a WGCA All-American Scholar in both 2015 and 2016 and was an Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar last year.

The WCC Championships begin this Thursday and run through Saturday (April 20-22) at Riverside Country Club in Provo, Utah. The Waves are trying for their 18th WCC title in 21 years.

WCC All-Academic first team: Lauren Atkinson (BYU), Kendra Dalton (BYU), Annie Freman (Santa Clara), Brooklyn Hocker (BYU), Rose Huang (BYU), Emily Laskin (San Francisco), Kristin Le (Santa Clara), Alison Lillie (San Francisco), Ciera Min (Gonzaga), Katherine Zhu (Pepperdine).

WCC All-Academic honorable mention: Kimberly Liu (San Francisco), Ayaka Suzuki (San Francisco).