The State Fair Community College (SFCC) softball team has earned a 2019-2020 NJCAA Softball Academic Team Award.

The Lady Roadrunners finished the academic year with a 3.28 team grade point average.

"The softball team is the only team that we have had earn this honor in my in my 24 years of being at State Fair," said Athletic Director Darren Pannier. "You have to earn at least a 3.0 grade point average as a team and you have to count everyone's GPA who is on the eligibility list. It requires the same criteria as the NJCAA Academic Student-Athlete Award. SFCC is known for their high academic standards as an institution. It is a very exciting time for SFCC. I have to tip my hat to our instructors who hold all of our students to a high academic standard."

Freshman Haley Berhorst of Holts Summit, sophomore Darby Christian of Sedalia, sophomore Alissa Collette of Springfield, freshman Brooke Conner of Sweet Springs, sophomore Jordan Fischer of New Florence, freshman Alexis Gililand of Jefferson City, sophomore Reagan Hockett of Sedalia, freshman Aleah Paxton of Lincoln, sophomore Abigail Rapp of King City, freshman Madison Thomas of Madison,  freshman Taylor Williams of Rogersville, and Amaya Bell of Jefferson City earned a 3.0 or higher grade point average.

"I think Coach Pannier made a comment during the fall that he has never had an NJCAA Academic Team Award at SFCC," said SFCC Head Softball Coach Lyndsey Talbot. "I immediately told our team that I wanted them to be the first one. We implemented study halls; we randomly checked their grades once or twice a week. When our season was canceled this spring, we decided since we can't compete for any region awards on the field, now we were going to compete amongst ourselves and be the first team to get that award.

"Academics are something that I begin to stress during the recruiting visit.  I'm very proud of our team. They were kind of on their own at the end the semester, but they remained competitive and got this award, Talbot said"

--David Rohrbach, SFCC Athletics

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