By: Wichita State
ST. LOUIS -- Wichita State's Kelsey Jacobs and Alie Decker were named to the Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete Team, it was announced by the conference office today.
Jacobs, a 6-2 forward from Fortuna, Calif., earned first-team honors and carries a 4.0 in graduate school in Sport Management. She earned a 3.74 in Exercise Science before graduating last May, and averages 8.3 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.1 blocks a game.
Decker, a 5-10 sophomore from Edmond, Okla., was named to the second-team and carries a 3.5 in Exercise Science. She averages 8.8 points and 3.5 rebounds a game.
Missouri State's Kenzie Williams was named the MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year. In all, 15 players were honored on the scholar-athlete teams.
With a 3.82 grade-point average in Elementary Education, Williams is a repeat selection on the MVC Scholar-Athlete first team. Williams is joined on the first team by Bradley's Michelle Young, Drake's Caitlin Ingle, UNI's Brooke Brown and Madison Weekly, and Wichita State's Jacobs.
Second team selections include Drake's Liza Heap, Evansville's Mallory Ladd, Illinois State's Katy Winge, Southern Illinois' Rishonda Napier and Wichita State's Decker.
The criteria for the scholar-athlete team balloting parallels the CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) standards for Academic All-America voting. Nominees must be starters or important reserves, have played at least 75-percent of a team's games, and must carry at least a 3.20 GPA (on a 4.0 scale).
Student-athletes must also have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at their institution (true and redshirt freshmen are not eligible) and must have completed at least one full academic year at the institution.
A total of 25 Valley student-athletes met the nomination criteria for scholar-athlete honors in 2015.
