Ten runners land on NAIA Scholar-Athlete list

By Jacob Knabel on Nov. 15, 2018 in Cross Country

SEWARD, Neb. – A group of 10 Bulldogs from Concordia University cross country head coach Matt Beisel’s program landed on the list of 2018 Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes, as announced on Thursday (Nov. 15) by the NAIA. The list of Bulldog honorees includes repeat award winners in seniors Evan Asche, Taylor Grove, Jacy Johnston, Nathan Matters, Josiah McAllister and Abby Protzman. Grove also qualified for the 2018 NAIA Cross Country National Championships.

In order to be nominated by an institution’s head coach or sports information director, a student-athlete must maintain a minimum grade point average of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale and must have achieved a junior academic status. A total of 347 women’s cross country and 223 men’s cross country student-athletes across the nation were named 2018 Scholar-Athletes by the NAIA.

Concordia University ranks as the NAIA’s all-time leader in number of Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes with 1,370 and counting. The Bulldogs have been a regular national leader for both scholar-athletes and scholar-teams and are coming off a 2017-18 academic year that resulted in 77 more scholar-athletes and 20 scholar-teams (third most in the nation). Also in 2017-18, seven Bulldog student-athletes garnered both CoSIDA Academic All-District and CoSIDA Academic All-America accolades. Samantha Liermann was tabbed the CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year for track and field/cross country.

2018 Cross Country NAIA Scholar-Athletes