NCAA Champs Earn Academic Honors
June 03, 2010 | Men's Water Polo
June 3, 2010
In addition to their recent honors as national champions, five USC water polo players have also added academic accolades to their resumes this year. On the men's side, sophomore Matt Burton earned a spot on the CoSIDA Academic All-District Second Team, while women's NCAA champs Joelle Bekhazi, Kara-Leigh Huse, Stephanie Lavayen and Kally Lucas have also been selected MPSF All-Academic scholar-athletes.
Matt Burton, a sophomore philosophy major with a 3.68 GPA, also received the NCAA's Elite 88 award for holding the highest GPA among the NCAA Men's Water Polo Championships participants this season. Now a two-time NCAA champ, Burton can add this latest selection as a CoSIDA Academic All-District second-team honoree out of District 8 to his 2009 MPSF All-Academic scholar-athlete award. He was joined with 2009 MPSF All-Academic honors by teammates Devon Borisoff, Joel Dennerley and Peter Kurzeka.
On the women's side, the MPSF recently released this year's All-Academic scholar-athlete list, which includes four members of USC's 2010 NCAA Champion squad. Senior Kally Lucas and redshirt junior Stephanie Lavayen have picked up their second career academic honors from the MPSF with this year's accolades. And earning their first MPSF academic awards in their first season of eligibility for the award are junior Joelle Bekhazi and sophomore Kara-Leigh Huse. Bekhazi and Lavayen both hold 3.32 GPAs, followed by Lucas' 3.11 and a 3.06 held by Huse.
