VILLANOVA, Pa.—One of the happiest rituals of the year across college campuses is the great fanfare that accompanies sending off a graduating senior class every spring. A graduation season unlike any other has not diminished the celebrations for the Villanova University Class of 2020, including a virtual reception on Thursday evening to honor an accomplished group of senior student-athletes. Top honors were awarded to
Mary Gedaka (women's basketball) and
Michael Perra (men's swimming & diving), who were chosen as the Female and Male Senior Student-Athletes of the Year. The entire senior class was honored with this year's Sister Mary Margaret Cribben Award.
Gedaka developed into one of the top players in the history of the women's basketball program during a career which saw her progress from the BIG EAST Sixth Woman Award winner as a sophomore in 2017-18 to a first team All-BIG EAST performer as a senior in 2019-20. She averaged 17.4 points per game and 7.0 rebounds per contest during her senior season while adding 94 assists and 35 steals during the 2019-20 campaign. Gedaka scored in double figures 82 times during her collegiate career and tallied 15 double-doubles. Included in those totals are 23 games with 20 or more points, 12 of which came during her senior year to go along with eight double-doubles on the season. Gedaka ends her stellar career ranked sixth in program history in scoring (1,555 points) and eighth on the Wildcats all-time list in rebounding (718).
In addition to excelling on the court, Gedaka was equally successful in her academic endeavors. She will graduate magna cum laude as a Psychology major and a Sociology minor who made both the Dean's List and the Athletic Director's Honor Roll every semester of her collegiate career. She tallied three semesters with a perfect 4.0 GPA, including both the fall and spring terms as a senior in 2019-20. Gedaka was named to the Capital One Academic All-District Team this season, to the BIG EAST All-Academic Team in each of the last three years and is a two-time honoree on the
Philadelphia Inquirer Academic All-Area squad for women's basketball.
Perra is the three-time BIG EAST Championships Most Outstanding Men's Diver after sweeping the conference titles on the 1-meter and 3-meter boards in each of the last three seasons. He put a cap on his career at the conference championships as a senior in 2020, where he tallied winning totals of 579.00 points in the 1-meter diving competition and 568.10 points in the 3-meter competition. During the 2019-20 season, Perra competed at 10 meets and registered a total of nine first-place finishes. In addition to the BIG EAST Championships, he also swept the 1-meter and 3-meter competitions in dual meets against Georgetown, Providence and Connecticut and scored a win on the 1-meter board against Penn. Perra was a six-time All-BIG EAST performer and a two-time BIG EAST Athlete of the Week during his career. He was part of a men's swimming & diving team that gained a great deal of momentum during his career, with the team surging to as high as a second place finish at the BIG EAST Championships in 2018.
The academic accolades for Perra shine just as brightly as his diving accomplishments. He will graduate cum laude with a major in Biology and a double minor in Spanish Language and Literature & Global Health. Perra, who aspires to become a surgeon, was an honorable mention selection to the 2018-19 CSCAA Scholar All-America Team. He is a six-time Dean's List honoree and was named to the Athletic Director's Honor Roll every semester of his career. Perra is a three-time member of both the BIG EAST All-Academic Team and the
Philadelphia Inquirer Academic All-Area Team.
Each class of student-athletes carves out a unique legacy in the historic record of Villanova Athletics, and that has never been more true than for the Class of 2020 which contended with unprecedented adversity in the home stretch of their collegiate careers. It was for that reason that the entire class was named the winner of the Sister Mary Margaret Cribben Award, which has been presented each year since 1985 and recognizes student-athletes who unselfishly sacrifice time, effort, body and soul to lead and motivate their teammates, and whose efforts on and off the field inspire those around them to excel.
The Class of 2020 will forever be remembered for the perseverance and courage that the senior student-athletes showed during difficult circumstances. At the same time however, the collective accomplishments and countless contributions that the senior class made to the entire Villanova community during their time on campus are remarkable in their own right.
This is the second straight year that Villanova Athletics is graduating a senior class which maintained a GPA above a 3.2 in every semester of their four academic years. Academic honors were aplenty for this group of seniors, which amassed 54 selections to national all-academic teams and was named to conference all-academic teams 373 times (and counting, with announcements still to come for the 2019-20 academic year). In addition, the Class of 2020 combined for 636 appearances on the Athletic Director's Honor Roll which recognizes a semester GPA of 3.2 or higher. Villanova teams were named to national All-Academic squads 46 times in the past four years, while winning 11 major conference academic awards. The average cumulative GPA for the Class of 2020 was a remarkable 3.351, with 49 students graduating with honors. The list includes seven students who are summa cum laude with a GPA of 3.9 or above, 12 who are magna cum laude (3.75-3.9) and 30 who are cum laude (3.5-3.75).
Villanova also shone brightly on the national and conference stages in athletic competition over the past four years. The senior class was a part of 16 national postseason appearances and 22 conference championships. Among the highlights for the class was the women's swimming & diving program extending its streak of BIG EAST titles to seven in a row, while the men's basketball team won at least a share of three regular season conference championships to go along with three straight BIG EAST Tournament crowns. The women's track & field and cross country program celebrated seven conference championships spanning the cross country, indoor and outdoor seasons; the men's program won five BIG EAST titles.
On an individual level, the senior student-athletes were named All-Americans on 14 occasions to go along with 11 major conference awards, 195 all-conference accolades and 150 weekly conference honors. Seniors from swimming & diving and track & field combined for 76 individual BIG EAST titles during their careers. In addition, the senior class combined to set 15 school records in women's lacrosse, men's and women's swimming & diving, volleyball and women's track & field.
It is with great pride that Villanova student-athletes enjoy a complete collegiate experience and touch all corners of the campus community. The senior class completed more than 11,000 community service hours over the past four years and were involved with annual efforts including the St. Thomas of Villanova Day of Service, the Special Olympics Fall Festival, the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, Dr. Seuss Read Across America Day and numerous other projects.
