Mercyhurst's Jacob Pilarski (left) and Gannon's Kelly Nickerson (right) - winners of the 2011-12 PSAC Champion Scholar Awards for the men's and women's golf championships.
Mercyhurst's Jacob Pilarski, Gannon's Kelly Nickerson Named Inaugural Winners of PSAC Champion Scholar Award
Hershey/Hummelstown, Pa. - Mercyhurst junior men's golfer Jacob Pilarski and Gannon senior women's golfer Kelly Nickerson have been named the inaugural winners of the PSAC Champion Scholar Awards.
The PSAC Champion Scholar Award are modeled after the NCAA's Elite 88 award and honors the student-athlete with the top grade point average that is competing at the site of each of the PSAC's 23 team championship finals. The selection criteria for the Champion Scholar Awards is identical to that of the NCAA Elite 88 awards, which honor the student-athlete with the top GPA at each of the championship finals sites of the 88 NCAA championships across all three divisions - I, II and III. Since the men's and women's golf championships were the first league championships of the 2011-12 academic year, Pilarski and Nickerson earn the honor of being the inaugural recipients of the award.
Pilarski is a junior majoring in political science with a specialization in international relations at Mercyhurst. He currently boasts a 4.0 grade point average while having accumulated 66 credit hours thus far in his career. He is a native of Garnet Valley, Pa. and graduated from Garnet Valley High School.
Nickerson is a senior majoring in sport and exercise science at Gannon. She also currently has a 4.0 grade point average and has accumulated 107 credit hours in her career. The Pittsburgh, Pa. native is a graduate of Seton-LaSalle High School.