Aug 30, 2016 2 min read

For the second straight season, the Upper St. Clair High School girls’ volleyball team earned a prestigious honor for academic achievement.

The Lady Panthers garnered the 2015-16 American Volleyball Coaches Association Team Academic Award. The team is one of 260 high school girls’ clubs in the nation recognized.

“We are incredibly proud that for the second year in a row our team has been selected as a recipient of the AVCA Team Academic Award,” USC head coach Alex Hinsley said. “I believe we are one of only two WPIAL schools to receive the award,” Bishop Canevin being the other.

The award, which was initiated in the 1992-93 academic year, honors collegiate and high school volleyball teams that displayed excellence in the classroom during the school year by maintaining at least a 3.30 cumulative team grade-point average on a 4.0 scale or a 4.10 cumulative team GPA on a 5.0 scale.

“Congratulations to the coaches and institutions that won the 2016 AVCA Team Academic Award,” Kathy DeBoer, AVCA executive director, said. “It is no accident that a volleyball coaches’ association recognizes academic excellence as a team, rather than an individual achievement. Players influence each other, both in execution on the court and discipline in the classroom.”

During the 2015-16 season, the USC girls’ volleyball team was the undefeated section champion. The Panthers finished third in the WPIAL and advanced to the PIAA quarterfinals.

The AVCA Team Academic Award is the single largest award offered by quantity of schools, players and coaches honored. Since the 2000-01 season, the number of recipients has increased every year but two, while amassing a 477-team increase over the span of the past decade. Since the award’s inception in 1993, the amount of award winners has increased from 62 to its current number of 764. Girls’ high schools led the way with the number of recipients of 260, an increase of 22 over last year.

Visit www.avca.org to view a complete list of academic award recipients.