NEW ORLEANS — A record six Portland State women's track and field athletes have been named to the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) All-Academic Track and Field Team, the association announced Tuesday, while the Viking women earned All-Academic team honors for the first time since 2008.
 
Sarah Dean, CeCelia Jackson, Jazmin Ratcliff, Genna Settle, Baileh Simms and Jasmine Woods earned the honor for the Vikings, giving the team its most honorees in a single season in program history. Only Ashley Quay and Caressa Sims had earned all-academic honorees within the program before, with Quay earning the award in 2006 and 2007, and Sims earning the award in 2007 and 2008.
 
Additionally, the Viking women earned their first All-Academic team honor since 2008 with a cumulative GPA of 3.34.
 
"There is no prouder moment in coaching than to see your athletes honored. But to see them honored at the highest level for both their athletic and academic excellence leaves me unequivocally ecstatic," PSU head coach Ronnye Harrison said. "Their accomplishment on the field of competition and in the classroom as individuals and as a team is truly humbling, and I am blessed to be the head coach of such an incredible, dynamic and talented group of ladies."
 
To qualify for the USTFCCCA All-Academic Track and Field Team, student-athletes must have compiled a cumulative grade point average of 3.25 or higher, and must have either finished the indoor season ranked in the top 96 nationally of an individual event (or top 48 in a relay), or participated in any round of the NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships.
 
All six of the Vikings' individual honorees qualified after participating in the NCAA West Preliminary Round during the outdoor season, and all six had GPAs of 3.33 or above. Dean and Settle tied for the team lead in GPA, with Dean finishing with a 3.92 GPA in environmental science, and Settle finishing with a 3.92 GPA in child & family science. Besides those two, Jackson and Simms finished the season with 3.58 and 3.50 GPAs in health sciences, respectively, while Woods and Ratcliff finished with 3.40 and 3.33 GPAs in social science and pre-nursing.
 
Team honors, meanwhile, went to teams with cumulative team GPAs of 3.00 or higher.