SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Eleven members of the Pepperdine men's and women's cross country teams earned West Coast Conference All-Academic teams, as announced by the conference on Friday.
To be considered, athletes must have at least a 3.20 grade point average, be in their second year at their respective schools and be significant contributors to the team.
Seven men, led by two-time All-WCC Academic Award winners Johnathan Flint (Flower Mound, Texas/Flower Mound HS) and Nate Lannen (Southlake, Texas/Carroll HS) earned WCC Honorable Mention honors. Graduate student Will Bullock (Marietta, Ga./Kennesaw Mountain HS), plus sophomores Joshua Bergers (Cohasset, Mass./IMG Academy), Kai Newman (Temecula, Calif./Linfield Christian HS), Spencer Mueller (Fresno, Calif./Clovis North HS) and Patrick Thomas (Paso Robles, Calif./Mission College Prep) rounded out the Waves' honorees.
All told, four of the men's team's seven runners at the NCAA West Regionals race ended up earning all-academic honors.
For the women, senior Elle Shrader (Boerne, Texas/Boerne-Samuel V. Champion HS) and juniors Megan LaCamera (Burbank, Calif./Burbank HS) and Caroline Fleenor (Alexandria, Va./Bishop O'Connell HS) earned the second WCC All-Academic honorable mention awards of their careers. Sophomore Abby Winter (Edina, Minn./Southwest Christian HS) rounded out the award winners on the women's team.
The Waves are coming off a season in which the women's team placed seventh and the men's team placed sixth at the WCC Cross Country Championships, held in Malibu at Alumni Park. Pepperdine's men's team ran seven new top-20 marks in the 8-kilometer and 10-kilometer distances combined, plus the women's team ran three new top-20 6-kilometer times.
