EVANSVILLE, Ind. – The University of Evansville was one of nine Missouri Valley Conference schools that were honored by the American Volleyball Coaches Association as recipients of the AVCA Team Academic Award for the 2013-14 season.
 
Members of Bradley, Evansville, Illinois State, Indiana State, Loyola, Missouri State, UNI, Southern Illinois and Wichita State were part of a record-breaking 676 programs to earn this distinction.
 
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.
 
Evansville finished the 2013-14 academic year with an unbelievable 3.715 GPA.  Just as impressive was the fact that nine team members posted a 3.64 or higher.  Leading the way was Lorena Marquez with a 3.939.  In her first semester at UE as a sophomore, Marquez posted a perfect 4.0.
 
Just behind her was senior Jenn Murphy.  The Wilmington, Ill. native finished with a perfect GPA in the spring semester of 2014.  Seniors Lauren Seyller and Rachel TenHoor also tallied a 4.0 in the spring.
 
The AVCA Team Academic Award has become one of the AVCA's fastest growing awards programs, seeing an impressive surge in teams honored over the past several years. Since the 2000-2001 season, the number of recipients have increased every single year but one, while amassing an overall 500% increase over the span of the last decade. Since the award's inception in 1993, the amount of award winners has increased from 62 to its current number of 684.
 
NCAA Division I recorded their highest-ever total number of recipients, honoring 136 programs while NCAA Division II also set a new record by reaching a total of 95 honorees. NCAA Division III continues to set new records after 129 schools take home the honor with the Two-Year College category also surpassing their previous high of 16 with 23.