Thirty-seven ACU Student-Athletes Earn 2025 Winter Academic All-WAC Recognition

Thirty-seven ACU Student-Athletes Earn 2025 Winter Academic All-WAC Recognition

4/8/2025 1:24:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Men's Track and Field, Women's Basketball, Women's Track and Field, Track & Field

By: Luke White

2025 WINTER ACADEMIC ALL-WAC

ARLINGTON, Texas - Thirty-seven Abilene Christian student-athletes earned 2025 Winter Academic All-Western Athletic Conference accolades, the league announced Tuesday afternoon. Of those, 35 received the honor after a previous selection in their career as ACU had the fourth-most student-athletes recognized in the conference.

Wildcats from four programs made the list, including women's basketball, men's basketball, men's track and field and women's track and field. To qualify, student-athletes must have completed one academic year at the member institution, hold a cumulative grade point average of 3.2 or better and must have competed in 50% of their team's contests.

Seniors Bella Earle and Zoe Jackson and juniors Meredith Mayes and Emma Troxell represented ACU women's basketball on the Academic All-WAC team. Earle and Mayes earned Academic All-District honors from College Sports Communicators in March and were each named to the Academic All-WAC team last season. Troxell joined Mayes on last year's 2023-24 Freshman/Transfer Academic All-WAC team.

Earle, an early childhood and elementary education major, has garnered Academic All-WAC accolades in each of the past three seasons and was named to the CSC All-Academic Team last year. Jackson returned to the list after earning 2022-23 Freshman/Transfer Academic All-WAC recognition.

Graduate student Hunter Jack Madden, senior Leonardo Bettiol and sophomore Ma'Shy Hill made the list from the men's basketball team. Madden and Bettiol both received the honor for the third year in a row, while Hill qualified for the second consecutive season.

The men's track and field program placed 16 student-athletes on the Academic All-WAC roster, as Horatio Brooks, Kevin Castruita, Sean Cooksey, Canaan Fairley, Mikhail Fortner, Miguel Hall, Rhett Kahlden, Ethan Krause, Samuel Lanham, Zach Martin, Kenan Reil, Ethan Rodriguez, Jacob Russell, Rylan Smart, JP Trook and Sutton Welch represented the team.

Brooks, Castruita, Cooksey, Fairley, Fortner, Hall, Kahlden, Krause, Lanham, Martin, Reil, Russell, Smart, Trook and Welch returned to the list after previous appearances.

Fourteen women's track and field student-athletes qualified for Academic All-WAC, including Hana Banks, Peyton Bornstein, Katelyn Coldicott, Kyla Fuller, Tessa Holderman, Izzy Malo, Hadley Phillips, Natalie Poe, Gracyn Reed, Jess Reyes, Kailey Roskop, Emma Shackelford, Luize Velmere and Kate Williams.

Banks, Bornstein, Coldicott, Fuller, Holderman, Phillips, Poe, Reed, Reyes, Roskop, Shackelford, Velmere, and Williams were recognized again after previous selections.

Freshmen and first-year transfers that qualify for Academic All-WAC honors will be recognized in the summer upon the conclusion of their first academic year at ACU.