Panther Briefs: Women's basketball earns academic award

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Posted: 7/17/08

The Eastern Illinois women's basketball team climbed three spots in the national rankings in the Women's Basketball Coaches Association 2007-08 Academic Top 25 Team honor roll.

The Panthers are now ranked No. 7 with a 3.475 cumulative team GPA.

GPAs are calculated by dividing the total number of quality points earned by each student-athlete on an institution's roster in the given academic terms by the total number of hours earned by the team. The GPAs are then rounded to the nearest thousandth of a point. The WBCA Board of Directors passed a motion in 2007 that teams making the list of Academic Top 25 Team Honor Roll must obtain at least a 3.000 overall GPA.

South Dakota State (3.669) and Indiana State (3.591) finished first and third respectively ahead of the Panthers on the honor roll.

Eastern finished the 2007-08 season with an overall record of 19-13 and a 15-5 record in the Ohio Valley Conference. Their home record at Lantz Arena was 11-5. The Panthers also tied for second in the OVC and advanced to the OVC Tournament Championship game.

The Panthers will be returning a core group of players from the 2007-08 season including All-OVC guard Megan Edwards and OVC Player of the Year candidate Rachel Galligan.

Eastern will open the 2008-09 season on Friday, Nov. 14 against Miami of Ohio at Lantz Arena.

All-Star status

Eastern pitcher Brian Morrell picked up two awards this week from the Central Illinois Collegiate League.

The right-hander was named the CICL Pitcher of the Week as he went 9 innings in a 2-1 win over the Danville Dans. He went on to strike out five and scattered two hits.

The pitcher, who plays for the Quincy Gems, was also named to the CICL All-Star team.

The CICL All-Stars will face the KIT (Kentucky, Illinois and Tennessee) All-Stars on July 21.

Since the start of the summer, Morrell is 4-1 with a 2.81 ERA in only eight appearances and 34 strikeouts.

Fellow Panther teammate Jordan Tokarz was named to the CICL co-Player of the Week after hitting .450 with five RBIs while playing for the DuPage County Dragons.

Tokarz is hitting .248 with 15 RBIs in only 26 games this summer.

Compiled by Sports Editor Molly Clutter.