Sharonda Johnson earned Academic All-District honors for the second straight year. |
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Cassie Ficken & Sharonda Johnson Named Academic All-District
June 3, 2005
Charlotte, N.C. - Charlotte 49er track stars Cassie Ficken and Sharonda Johnson have been chosen to the 2005 CoSIDA ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District III Second Team. Charlotte was one of only four schools to have two elected to the teams, which total 20 female track student-athletes.
The College Sports Information Directors Association (CoSIDA) administers the ESPN the Magazine Academic All-America program to honor the NCAA's top student-athletes. The first round of voting takes place at the district level to narrow the candidates for national honors. The ten student-athletes on the academic first team in each district advance to the national ballot to compete for Academic All-America honors.
Ficken, who earned the school's first-ever indoor All-American award in a distance event this winter, was nominated with a cumulative GPA of 3.586 in civil engineering. She will be competing in her second straight NCAA Championship meet in Sacramento, June 8-11, when she takes on the nation's best in the 5,000-meter run.
Johnson, who was a third-team Academic All-American at the national level last year, was nominated with a 3.849 cumulative GPA in chemistry. She competed at this year's NCAA Indoor Championships in the triple jump and was the first-ever athlete at Charlotte to earn All-America honors both athletically and academically last spring.
In women's track & field, a total of 57 nominations representing 28 Division I colleges and universities in District III (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia) were received. The pair of Charlotte juniors were elected to the team in voting by sports information directors in the district and were two of 10 student-athletes that made up the second team.
To be nominated, student-athletes must be a significant contributor athletically, must have completed at least one full year at their institution, and must carry a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.20.
Ficken and Johnson's awards give Charlotte four Academic All-District honorees this spring, and six during the 2004-05 academic year. Zvi Lantsburg (men's tennis) and Jennifer Hatch (women's tennis) were each chosen to the first team Academic All-District III team and will represent the 49ers on the national ballot. Leslie Canales (first team) and Kim Miles (second team) represented the Charlotte on the women's soccer Academic All-District team during the fall.
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