MISENHEIMER — With the 2023-24 sports season wrapped up, Pfeiffer University’s athletic department has found itself well-represented in a recent student-athlete award category.
The USA South Athletic Conference announced its Academic All-Conference honorees last week and Pfeiffer saw 199 members of its Falcon teams recognized by the league, the most from any school in the conference and also Pfeiffer’s highest number of honorees since joining the league six years ago.
Across 15 different schools, the USA South had 1,444 student-athletes that earned All-Academic inclusion based on their academic performance during the 2023-24 season.
Along with the listed honorees in a press release, the conference included the criteria for designation: “A student-athlete must have earned a 3.30 GPA in each of the two semesters of a given year to be eligible. Any student-athlete participating at any USA South institution is eligible thus the participant does not have to compete in a USA South-sponsored sport. Additionally, any student-athlete earning a 3.90 GPA or above earned the All-Academic honor with distinction.”
Pfeiffer is home to 65 Falcon student-athletes who earned a GPA of 3.90 or higher during the 2023-24 season; the university has had 897 selections to the USA South All-Academic Team in total since 2018.
Last season, the Falcons had 115 Academic All-Conference honorees; the university had 112 honorees and 136 honorees in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
This past season, Pfeiffer had two teams — softball and men’s lacrosse — that each won USA South titles for the second consecutive year.
However, those aren’t the only sports where the school excelled and finished with impressive results in the conference standings.
The Falcons finished strong in eight other programs: men’s cross country (second), women’s cross country (third), men’s indoor track and field (second), women’s indoor track and field (second), women’s lacrosse (third), men’s tennis (second), men’s outdoor track and field (second), and women’s outdoor track and field (second).
Following the recent conference tournaments and postseason action, the USA South recently held its annual Student-Athlete Leadership Retreat in Raleigh, compiling student-athletes from across the conference — including Pfeiffer — and honing leadership skills, personal and professional etiquette, and knowledge of the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) landscape.
“Having just completed it here in Raleigh, NC, it was another exhilarating, educational, fun opportunity for us to come together, learn some things and get to know each other off the field and outside of the competitive arena,” USA South Commissioner Dr. Tom Hart said earlier this month in an event recap video from the conference. “I was very appreciative of the fact that we had a chance to break bread together, do a little recreation, and then also share pieces of gratitude and what we learned throughout the event.”