Los Angeles, Calif.----- The San Jose State University men's water polo team had the highest percentage of student-athletes earn a 2018 Golden Coast Conference All-Academic Team award among the six conference members.
More than 58 percent, 14 of the team's 24 active student-athletes earned academic honors for achieving a 3.00 or better cumulative grade-point average and playing in at least 50 percent of the team's contests last season.
The Spartans single-handedly accounted for more than a quarter of the 53 student-athletes honored. UC Santa Barbara also had 14 (out of 28) team members earn conference academic honors to match San Jose State.
Juniors Ashley Castle, Giacomo Lovatelli and Marc Weber became three-time award winners.
Senior Cade Baldridge and sophomore Justin Pickering earned their second Golden Coast Conference All-Academic team award.
Freshmen Neil Arnett, Adam Bado, Yahav Fire, Niels Hofmeijer, Utku Karhan, and Collin Murphy; sophomore Cristian Tanase, and juniors Brad Dennis and Emerson Trout are first-time honorees.
"We're changing the culture of the team. We're improving in and out of the pool. This is just unbelievable the improvement we've made academically. It's a great achievement and we're very excited about it," said San Jose State University men's water polo head coach Bruce Watson. "We have a great group of guys. They're dedicated and have their priorities straight. It's really neat to see. They pulled and helped each other academically.
"I also want to thank our academic advisors for their support. We couldn't have done this without them."
"Congratulations to our student-athletes on the men's water polo team that were named to the conference's All-Academic team. Their collective accomplishment as the top academic performing team in the Golden Coast Conference last semester is a great source of pride," said Eileen Daley, senior associate athletics director for academics and student services and the department's senior woman administrator.
| Award winners by school | |
| San José State | 14 |
| UC Santa Barbara | 14 |
| UC Irvine | 10 |
| Pacific | 6 |
| Long Beach State | 5 |
| Pepperdine | 4 |