May 27, 2009

BEAUMONT - Lamar University women's tennis standout Maria Gutierrez was named to the Southland Conference All-Academic First Team.

A native of San Antonio, Venezuela, Gutierrez received first-team honors for the third consecutive year. The Lady Cardinals' senior, who was the Southland Conference's lone first-team selection to the CoSIDA/ESPN the Magazine Academic All-District VI team, posted a 3.92 GPA in civil engineering off the court while winning all 11 of her singles matches and 15 more in doubles on it.

The all-academic teams are voted on by the head coaches, sports information directors and academic/compliance administrators from each Southland university. Student-athletes must possess a 3.0 cumulative GPA, have completed one full academic year at the nominating institution and participated in at least 50 percent of the team's competition to qualify for the all-academic squad. Student-athletes earn automatic qualification onto the Southland Conference All-Academic Team if they maintain a GPA of 3.0 and were also named first-team All-Southland Conference and/or the CoSIDA/ESPN the Magazine All-Academic District VI At Large team.