Total Tar Heels: July 3, 2017

Total Tar Heels is a digest that provides a behind-the-scenes look at UNC student-athletes and some of the things they do away from competition.

Recent weeks have brought a slew of academic honors, both at the national level and conference level, for UNC student-athletes competing in spring sports.

• Sarah Howard was named to the Academic All-America team for women's track and field/cross country and RJ Alowlonle was named to the Academic All-America third team for men's track and field/cross country. Howard is the first Tar Heel woman to earn first-team honors since 2007. Alowonle is the first Tar Heel since 1988 to earn a spot on any of the three men's Academic All-America teams.

Honors for Alowonle and Howard brought the total number of UNC student-athletes named to Academic All-America teams this school year to six, with three of those – Howard, Hayley Carter from women's tennis and David October from men's soccer – earning first-team honors.

• Two Tar Heels earned ACC Scholar-Athlete honors for spring sports, claiming the highest academic and athletic awarded in each conference sport. Hayley Carter was honored in women's tennis, becoming the first player in ACC women's tennis history to sweep the league's Player of the Year, Tournament MVP and Scholar-Athlete awards in back-to-back years. She finished her career with an ACC-record 168 singles victories and a 3.93 cumulative GPA.

Junior Marie McCool, a first-team All-America honoree and current member of the U.S. National Team, was honored as the Scholar-Athlete of the Year women's lacrosse. She is majoring in management and society.

• Thirty-six other Tar Heels joined Carter and McCool in earning spots on the All-ACC Academic Teams for spring sports:
Softball: Kendra Lynch, Brittany Pickett
Baseball: Gianluca Dalatri
Men's Golf: Jose Montaño
Women's Golf: Leslie Cloots, Lexi Harkins, Bryana Nguyen
Men's Lacrosse: Luke Goldstock, Stephen Kelly, Jack Lambert, Andy Matthews, Austin Pifani
Women's Lacrosse: Maggie Auslander, Carly Davis, Sydney Holman, Marie McCool, Caylee Waters
Rowing: Paige Colpo, Morgan Donnelly, Kathryn Johnson, Jackie Kenny, Kelly Williams
Men's Tennis: William Blumberg, Blaine Boyden, Robert Kelly, Ronnie Schneider
Women's Tennis: Jessie Aney, Hayley Carter, Sara Daavettila, Alexa Graham, Makenna Jones, Chloe Ouellet-Pizer
Men's Track and Field: RJ Alowonle, Kenny Selmon, Darryl Shaw
Women's Track and Field: Anna Eaton, Nicole Greene, Sarah Howard

• The UNC men's and women's swimming & diving programs both earned Scholar All-America recognition from the College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA). The honor requires a team GPA of 3.0 or better. The UNC men's team posted a GPA of 3.07 this spring and the Tar Heel women earned a GPA of 3.28.

STUDENT-ATHLETE LIFE

• With professional baseball careers behind them, Andrew Carignan and Tim Fedroff are pointed toward their next successes and took a big step in that direction on May 14 when they both graduated from UNC. The two are latest in a long line of Carolina baseball players who have left school early for professional careers but made returning for their degrees a priority. When they graduated in May as part of the Class of 2017, with Brian Holberton also part of that group, it made a total of 27 players during head coach Mike Fox's 19-year tenure in Chapel Hill who left school for professional careers and subsequently returned to graduate.

University of North Carolina Athletics

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