Georgia McGovern Earns First-Team Academic All-America Honors

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Georgia McGovern of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps volleyball team earned first-team Division III Academic All-America honors from College Sports Communicators, the organization announced today.

The Academic All-America program recognizes student-athletes who combine athletic success with high academic achievement. McGovern earned that distinction after a big year helping CMS to the NCAA Division III national semifinals as the team's primary setter. 

McGovern was a first-team American Volleyball Coaches Association All-American this year, while ranking second in the nation in assists per set and finishing with the second-highest single-season assist total in school history with 1195. She was the AVCA West Region Player of the Year, the Most Outstanding Player of both the SCIAC Postseason Tournament and the NCAA Regionals, and made the all-tournament team at the NCAA Division III Championships, which CMS hosted, capping off the tournament with a career-high 61 assists in a five-set defeat to Hope. 

As a team, CMS led the nation in both kills per set and assists per set. McGovern finished just .1 assists per set shy of leading the nation in that category, ironically coming up short due to her own prowess attacking, finishing the year with 149 kills of her own. CMS ended the year with a 26-6 record, and matched its second-deepest NCAA run in program history by reaching the semifinals. 

The award marks the second season in a row that the Athenas have had a player chosen to the CSC Academic All-America teams. A year ago, Brenna Bell was selected to the second team after setting a program record with a .404 hitting percentage and leading CMS to a No. 1 ranking for ten weeks. 

McGovern is the 25th student-athlete in CMS history to earn a spot on one of the Academic All-America teams. She is also the first CMS volleyball player to be selected to the first team, and the 10th CMS student-athlete overall, joining Paul Schulz (baseball, 1984), Bob Donlan (men's basketball, 2002), Harmony Palmer (softball, 2013), Kristin Lim (women's tennis, 2013), CJ Novogradac (baseball, 2018), Thomas D'Anieri (cross country/track and field, 2020), Nicole Tan (women's tennis, 2020), Josh Angle (men's basketball, 2023) and Cooper McKenna (women's water polo, 2023).