Muscaro Earns Second Sports Excellence Award; Merrimack Boasts Five NE10 Winter Academic Nods
Links: NE10 Release
NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – Five student-athletes from Merrimack College were selected to the Northeast-10 Conference Academic All-Conference Team for the winter 2016-17 season, as announced by the league office on Thursday.
Headlined by senior Carly Muscaro (Ashland, Mass.), who was named a two-time Sports Excellence Award Winner for women's indoor track & field, Merrimack earned a pair of representatives in women's indoor track & field, one from men's indoor track & field and two more from the women's basketball program.
A total of 67 winter sport student-athletes collected NE10 Academic All-Conference accolades. That total is up from the 62 total student-athletes honored last winer. Additionally, one Sport Excellence Award winner was chosen from the following seven sports: men's and women's indoor track & field, men's and women's basketball, men's ice hockey and men's and women's swimming & diving.
A sports medicine major, junior Niall Coughlin (Castleton, N.Y.) of the men's track & field team earns the first Acadmeic All-Conference honor of his career after posting a 3.85 GPA in the classroom. A standout distance runner, Coughlin ranked fifth in the NE10 during the indoor season in the mile, and ranked 15th in conference in the 1000m with a time of 2:32.70. The junior registered a win in the 1000m at the Bowdoin Invitational this season, and closed out his junior campaign with a seventh-place finish in the mile with a school record time of 4:16.18.
As a psychology major, senior forward Savannah Johnson (Palmdale, Calif.) of the women's basketball team boasted a 3.79 GPA after arriving at Merrimack as a junior-college transfer in the Fall of 2015. Johnson started in all 28 games this season for the Warriors as a senior captain, averaging 7.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game. Her 96 offensive rebounds led the Navy and Gold and ranked among the top-five in the NE10 this season, while she finished sixth in the conference in field-goal percentage (46.9).
A computer science major, junior Lauren MacGregor (Salem, N.H.) of the women's track & field team led the way for Merrimack's honorees with a 3.92 GPA. MacGregor ranked ninth in the NE10 in her signature triple jump event this season with a 11.05m jump, as well as ranking 19th in conference in the long jump at 5.12m. She won the triple jump at Merrimack's first meet of the season, and finished eighth in the same event at the NE10 Championships. She closed out her junior indoor campaign with a 12th-place finish in the triple jump at the New England Championships.
A criminal justice major, Muscaro earns the Sport Excellence Award for the second time after registering a historic seasonwhile posting a 3.89 GPA in the classroom. Muscaro capped off her indoor senior campaign by winning two National Titles in the 200m and 400m at the NCAA Championships for the first time while setting the all-time Division II record in the 400m. Her efforts at NCAA's helped her team earn 25 points to post a program-best seventh-place finish and was the highest scoring individual at NCAA's. Earlier in the season she also ran the the second-fastest time in collegiate history in the 500m and was one of just 15 women nationwide to be named All-Region in four different events. She was named the USTFCCCA DII Track Athlete of the Year for the first time in her career.
Rounding out the honorees, sophomore guard Hannah Neild (Litchfield, N.H.) tied Muscaro with a 3.89 GPA through her first three semesters on campus. The second-year sharpshooter led the Navy and Gold with 57 3-pointers, making 37.0 percent of her attempts from distance. An early childhood education major, Neild set personal bests as a sophomore in points per game (8.7), 3-point field-goal percentage, 3-point field goals and rebounds per game (4.1). She finished this season scoring in double figures in 12 of 28 appearances.
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