Women's Tennis | 5/20/2020 3:00:00 PM

    WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – West Liberty University's student-athletes overcame the disruption of a nationwide pandemic, the transition from on-campus to online instruction and the early and abrupt termination of the spring sports season to produce the most successful academic semester in the history of the Hilltopper athletic department.
    The 464 student-athletes from WLU's 18 intercollegiate sports achieved a department-record combined 3.25 GPA in the spring. It marked the fourth straight semester with a combined GPA of 3.00 or higher as 13 of the 18 teams – including all nine women's squads – reached or exceeded the 3.00 team GPA plateau.
    Seventeen of the 18 teams had at least one player with a 4.00 GPA while 14 of the 18 squads had multiple teammates reach the 4.00 mark. Four teams – women's volleyball, women's basketball, women's tennis and women's golf – had every member of their roster post GPAs of 3.00 or higher.
    "We always take great pride in the academic success of our student-athletes," athletic director Lynn Ullom said. "To achieve this record-setting performance in light of the unique challenges they faced really speaks well for their dedication and commitment and I congratulate them.
    "I also want to express a special note of appreciation for our outstanding faculty. None of this would have been possible without their tireless and innovative work in developing a quality online instructional model on incredibly short notice. It was a truly inspiring team effort and we are incredibly grateful."
    A record 91 WLU student-athletes overcame the challenging conditions to earn perfect 4.00 GPAs with 311 of the 464 Hilltoppers (67 percent) getting over the 3.00 GPA hump. Perhaps most impressively, nearly half (46 percent) of all student-athletes charted GPAs of 3.50 or higher.
    Breaking it down by gender, more than 88 percent of all female student-athletes posted GPAs of 3.00 or higher with 68 percent checking in at 3.50 or better. More than one-third of WLU's female student-athletes recorded perfect 4.00 GPAs during the truncated spring semester.
    While West Liberty's female intercollegiate athletes clearly held the upper hand, the Hilltopper men fought their way through the COVID-19 upheaval to turn in a solid semester in the classroom.
    More than half of the Hilltoppers' male student-athletes (54 percent) attained the 3.00 GPA standard with exactly one-third (33.3 percent) achieving at a 3.50 or better clip. Thirty-three West Liberty male student-athletes had perfect 4.00 GPAs in the spring.
    Leading the way were WLU's women's tennis, volleyball and soccer teams, which all posted team GPAs of 3.70 or higher for the semester. Coach Heather Gallagher's women's tennis squad came out on top with a 3.78 combined GPA. All eight women's tennis players blew past the 3.00 milestone with seven of them at 3.50 or higher and four of the eight achieving perfect 4.00 GPAs.
    All 15 members of Coach Kayla Mull's volleyball team cracked the 3.00 barrier for the second straight semester in combining for a 3.77 spring GPA. A dozen volleyball players were at 3.50 or higher with seven achieving 4.00 perfection.
    Coach Barry Christmas's women's soccer team had 23 of 24 players at 3.00 or better and charted a combined 3.70 GPA for the semester. Nineteen of Christmas's 24 players were at 3.50 or higher with 13 of them hitting the 4.00 mark.