NEW YORK—The women's swimming & diving program, winners of seven consecutive BIG EAST titles and the 2019-20 Nnenna Lynch Award as the Villanova team with the highest GPA for the academic year, earned another honor on Monday afternoon when it was named the winner of a BIG EAST Team Academic Excellence Award. The accolade is presented to the 22 teams which have the highest GPA in each sport sponsored by the conference. This is the fourth time in the past nine years that women's swimming & diving has taken home the prestigious honor.
The winners of the Team Academic Excellence Awards are chosen based on the 2019-20 grade point average of each student-athlete who appeared on an institution's roster as of the last contest of the championship segment in each conference-sponsored sport. Villanova teams have combined to win 16 Team Academic Excellence awards over the past 10 years.
Head coach
Rick Simpson guided the Wildcats to their program-record seventh consecutive BIG EAST title earlier this year. His team was equally successful academically, with the squad posting a 3.658 GPA for the year. Villanova was named by the College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) as a Scholar All-America Team earlier this month.
On an individual level, each of the 21 student-athletes on the 2019-20 roster were named to the Athletic Director's Honor Roll for having a GPA of 3.2 or higher in Spring 2020. Senior diver
Bridie Dunn and junior swimmer
Milly Routledge were each named to the CSCAA Honorable Mention Scholar All-America team for having a GPA of at least 3.50 while achieving either a "B" time standard or competing at an NCAA Regional or Zone Diving qualifier.
Routledge was the Most Outstanding Women's Swimmer at this year's BIG EAST Championships and was voted the
Philadelphia Inquirer Academic All-Area Performer of the Year in Women's Swimming & Diving earlier this summer. She was joined on the Academic All-Area Team by teammates
Rayann Jaryszak and
Kelly Montesi to mark the 10
th consecutive year that the Wildcats had at least three selections to the 10-person Academic All-Area squad.
The run of success for Villanova over the past seven years has been remarkable. At this year's BIG EAST Championships, the Wildcats had 15 student-athletes combine to earn 43 All-BIG EAST honors for finishing in the top three of their individual event or relay. Villanova scored 882 points to win the 2020 conference crown, easily outdistancing runner-up Georgetown (749) and the rest of the six-team field. In addition to Routledge being named the Most Outstanding Women's Swimmer, Simpson and his staff earned their seventh straight Women's Coaching Staff of the Year award.
