On Saturday, November 2nd the White Oaks Conference Resort and Spa in Niagara-on-the-Lake played host to the annual Niagara College CCAA National Scholar Awards Bruncheon. The event honoured 26 Niagara College student-athletes with the 2012-13 CCAA National Scholar Award. The 26 recipients represent Niagara College’s highest number of National Scholar Award winners to date.
The National Scholar Award is designed to recognize the outstanding academic accomplishments of CCAA student-athletes. To be recognized, a student-athlete must achieve honours standing at their institution in the current academic year and compete as a member of one of their institution’s intercollegiate sport teams.
Niagara College vice-president, student and external relations Sean Kennedy commented "Niagara College is extremely proud of our scholar-athletes and their accomplishments. This award recognizes the effort required to balance the demands of academic excellence and high performance competition; a challenge that these student-athletes have met and in which they have excelled."
The 26 recipients in 2012-13 represent an improvement over the 23 Niagara College student-athletes to receive the award in 2011-12. Six of Niagara College’s eight varsity programs were represented in 2012-13 including men’s soccer (3), women’s soccer (11), women’s basketball (2), men’s volleyball (2), women’s volleyball (3), and curling (5).
Matthew Davies, Niagara College’s manager of athletics & recreation added, “our CCAA National Scholar Award winners represent the high performance culture that we continue to build at Niagara College. Their academic success is the cornerstone to what the Knight experience is truly all about. Excellence is a habit that needs to start in the classroom first, and our award winners are showing tremendous leadership to their teammates.”
Melissa Borowski (curling), Matt Service (curling), Josh Giancola (soccer), and Brad Wall (volleyball) are all second time recipients of the CCAA National Scholar Award. Service now serves as an assistant coach with the Niagara College curling team.
Eight of the honoured recipients currently compete as members of the Niagara College intercollegiate sport program including Shelby Johnston (basketball), Cody Smith (Curling), Kyle Brooks (soccer), Natalie Bessagato (soccer), Robyn Deklerk (soccer), Sierra Grant (soccer), Megan Henderson (volleyball), and Andrea Stoskopf (volleyball).
Full list of the 26 Niagara College CCAA National Scholar Award Recipients:
Shelby Johnston, Basketball (Welland)
Lauren Van Leerzem, Basketball (Oil Springs)
Karen Aitken, Curling (Ridgetown)
Melissa Borowski, Curling (Welland)
Matt Service, Curling (Millgrove)
Cody Smith, Curling (Gravenhurst)
Katelynn Spanton, Curling (Sarnia)
Kyle Brooks, Soccer (Milton)
Joshua Giancola, Soccer (St. Catharines)
Gabriel Rodrigues, Soccer (Sudbury)
Lauren Andrews, Soccer (Lowbanks)
Krystal Baum, Soccer (Grimsby)
Natalie Bessegato, Soccer (Grand Bend)
Sarah Charlton, Soccer (Strathroy)
Emily Craig, Soccer (Bradford)
Robyn Deklerk, Soccer (Dunnville)
Sierra Grant, Soccer (Welland)
Carli Hines, Soccer (Welland)
Brittany Johnston, Soccer (Ridgeway)
Jesse Mathias, Soccer (Welland)
Emily Sexton, Soccer (Prince George, BC)
Shayne Petrusma, Volleyball (Burlington)
Bradley Wall, Volleyball (St. Catharines)
Megan Henderson, Volleyball (Fenwick)
Andrea Stoskopf, Volleyball (Milton)
Corrie Hill, Volleyball (Black Creek)