FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Info Courtesy of SJC, Emmanuel Athletics Communications
WINTHROP, Mass. – Three Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) student-athletes have been named to the 2018-19 Google Cloud Academic All-American® Men's and Women's Basketball Teams, as selected by CoSIDA. The trio – Emmanuel College junior Yuleska Ramirez-Tejeda and Saint Joseph's College of Maine seniors Darian Berry and Kelsi McNamara – all earned CoSIDA All-District honors last month as well.
The award recognizes the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances on the court and in the classroom. The Google Cloud Academic All-America® program separately recognizes men's and women's basketball honorees in four divisions — NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III and NAIA.
The Division III Academic All-America® program is being financially supported by the NCAA Division III national governance structure to assist CoSIDA with handling the awards fulfillment aspects for the 2018-19 Division II Academic All-America® teams program. For more information regarding the Google Cloud Academic All-America® program, visit https://academicallamerica.com/.
BERRY: A Finance & Accounting major, Berry claimed Google Cloud Academic All-District® honors in February and has twice garnered Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) All-Academic honors. At Saint Joseph's, Berry has been listed on the Dean's List in each of the last seven semesters and has served several prestigious internships, including posts at UNUM and Liberty Mutual. He is also a certified real estate agent in Maine and New Hampshire.
He is the only men's basketball player from either the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) or a Maine college or university to earn the national academic accolade.
Berry is one of four individuals in the history of SJC Athletics to garner Academic All-America® honors as she joins Kelsi McNamara '19 (Women's Basketball), Taylor Black '17 (Baseball), and Alyssa Dunn '11 (Softball) on the exclusive list.
During his senior season Berry averaged 20.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game while shooting 54.0% (204-378) from the floor, 45.1% (69-153) from three-point distance, and 75.3% (64-85) from the free-throw line in 27 starts.
He closed out his four-year career with 1,275 points, 380 rebounds, 183 assists, and 74 steals in 89 contests and leaves the program ranked fifth in three-pointers attempted (485) and made (296), seventh in three-point percentage (40.5%), 14th in scoring average (14.3 PPG), and 20th in points.
Berry, a two-time All-Conference and All-State honoree, became the 41st SJC player to reach the 1,000-Point plateau when he netted 21 points in a 104-85 win over eventual GNAC Champion Albertus Magnus College on January 16th.
The 15-man Academic All-America® men's team has a 3.89 GPA with the first team posting a 3.96. Two men boast perfect 4.0s.
RAMIREZ-TEJEDA: Ramirez-Tejeda was tabbed a Google Cloud College Sports Information Director's of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-American, earning Second Team honors to become the first Academic All-American in program history. The Cambridge, Mass. native also this week was named to the D3Hoops.com Northeast Region Second Team while also earning All-Region Second Team honors from the New England Women's Basketball Association (NEWBA).
Ramirez-Tejeda becomes the program's first Google Cloud CoSIDA Academic All-American. The Criminal Justice major sports a 3.81 GPA with a Spanish minor. She enjoyed a wildly successful campaign averaging a team-best 20.9 points per game while ranking third overall in the GNAC in scoring with 626 points, a new single-season Emmanuel record. The junior also led Emmanuel while ranking fourth in the GNAC in rebounds averaging 10.9 boards per game while her 327 boards was also a new single-season record at Emmanuel. The Cambridge, Mass. native posted 20 double-doubles this year to rank third in the nation and was the only GNAC player to average 20+ points and 10+ rebounds this season. She was named the USBWA National Player of the Week twice during the season and was named the GNAC Player of the Week five times while earning GNAC Weekly Honor Roll efforts six times.
In her two seasons with the program, Ramirez-Tejeda has been tabbed the GNAC Player of the Week six times, earned 13 GNAC Weekly Honor Roll nods to go along with four NEWBA Weekly recognitions (1 POW/3 HR). She scored her 1,000th career point in the 2019 GNAC Championship game, becoming the fastest player to 1,000 in an Emmanuel uniform (55 games) and is closing in on 600 career rebounds at Emmanuel (588) in two seasons.
McNAMARA: An Elementary Education major with a concentration in Special Education, McNamara collected Google Cloud Academic All-District® accolades during her junior and senior years and also claimed GNAC All-Academic accolades after her sophomore and junior years. In addition, McNamara was listed on the Dean's List in 2017 and 2018 and has completed several internships at local elementary schools.
McNamara is one of four individuals in the history of SJC Athletics to garner Academic All-America® honors as she joins Darian Berry '19 (Men's Basketball), Taylor Black '17 (Baseball), and Alyssa Dunn '11 (Softball) on the exclusive list.
McNamara, the 2019 GNAC, NEWBA, and MWBCA Player of the Year, averaged 21.2 points, 6.7 assists, and 3.6 rebounds per game while shooting 43.9% (207-472) from the field, 37.5% (93-248) from three-point range, and 88.4% (129-146) from the free-throw line during her senior season. She finished the year ranked second in NCAA DIII Women's Basketball in assists (200), third in three-pointers made (93), fourth in points (636), fifth in assists average, sixth in field goals made (207), free-throw percentage, and three-point attempts (248), and ninth in scoring average.
During her senior season McNamara eclipsed the Monks' career records for points (2,067), assists (621), three-pointers made (327) and attempted (856), and field goal attempts (1,660). She also moved up the SJC career leaderboard in games (118, 2nd), field goals made (677, 2nd), free throws made (386, 2nd), assists average (5.3, 2nd), free throw percentage (83.5%, 3rd), scoring average (17.5, 3rd), three-point percentage (38.2%, 4th), free throws attempted (462, 6th), and steals (204, 9th).
She is the one of two GNAC players – Yuleska Ramirez-Tejeda (Emmanuel), who earned Second Team honors, is the other – and the only player from a Maine college or university to earn the academic accolade.
The 15-woman Google Cloud Academic All-America® women's team has an average GPA of 3.88 with the first team checking in at 3.97. Five of the 15 women have perfect 4.0 GPAs.
The Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) is an NCAA Division III association made up of 13 member institutions and over 3,000 student-athletes across the New England region. Founded in 1995, the GNAC annually sponsors and administers 20 championships, while balancing academic integrity, athletic opportunity and community involvement in an effort to enhance the student-athlete experience.
– #TheGNAC –