MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Cementing dynasty status in the classroom, the MacEwan women's basketball team has won the Cathryn Heslep Academic Team of the Year award for a third-straight season.
The prestigious honour, which goes to the Griffins team with the best combined GPA, continues to show how dedicated MacEwan student-athletes are to their academic pursuits.
The Griffins women's basketball team won with a combined GPA of 3.505 in 2023-24, edging out women's volleyball and women's soccer for the award.
All total, six Griffins teams had at least a 3.0 GPA or higher.
"The Griffins women's basketball team has been outstanding in leading our department on the academic side for the past few years," said MacEwan Athletics Director Joel Mrak. "This team has shown tremendous dedication to their studies and has been pretty incredible in balancing their courses with the demands of being a student-athlete to such a high degree.
"A big congratulations to all members of the women's basketball team!"
The Griffins women's basketball team also won the award in 2021-22 (with a combined 3.508 GPA) and in 2022-23 (with a 3.58), and have firmly established a culture of academic success throughout the lineup.
"We have some very high achievers and some very driven and ambitious students on our team," said Griffins head coach Katherine Adams. "They have very high expectations for themselves, and they really set the standard academically in what they achieve and what we, collectively, as a team set out to achieve.
"It's an award they take a lot of pride in," she added. "I think it's the cultural piece around it of setting the standard in the classroom. It's really cool to see how they support each other and encourage each other to excel on the academic side, as well."
The Cathryn Heslep Academic Team of the Year award first started in 1990-91 as the Athletic Alumni Chapter Award. Since then, there have been 20 known winners, with some of the award's history unknown. Of the known winners, women's volleyball has captured the honour the most. Led by a run of five-straight wins between 2004-09, they've won it nine times.
Women's basketball has won it three times – all in the last three years.
Stay tuned to our social media channels next week as we unveil more academic honours for our student-athletes – our Top Academic awards, which are presented to the Griffins with the best GPA in each of MacEwan's five faculties.
Monday, April 29: School of Business
Tuesday, April 30: Faculty of Fine Arts & Communications
Wednesday, May 1: Faculty of Health & Community Studies
Thursday, May 2: Faculty of Nursing
Friday, May 3: Faculty of Arts & Science
