BATON ROUGE — Ashleigh Clare-Kearney, Lauren Klein and Amanda Morales of the LSU gymnastics team were named NACGC/W Alpha Factor Scholastic All-Americans, the National Association of Collegiate Gymnastics Coaches/Women announced.
Clare-Kearney earned Scholastic All-America honors for the second straight year after capping her record-setting senior season by winning the vault and floor national titles at the NCAA Championships on April 18.
Klein, a senior in 2009, earned her fourth straight Scholastic All-America honor after finishing the year with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. Klein was also honored as the LSU female nomination for the Southeastern Conference’s prestigious H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Post-Graduate Scholarship.
Morales earned her fourth consecutive Scholastic All-America honor, but she was unable to compete at all in 2009 because of a knee injury.
“It is the first part of the term ?student-athlete,’ ” LSU coach D-D Breaux said. “Academics is the most important part of our mission, and any time our team has success in the classroom we are doing exactly what we brought in our student-athletes to do. It is a wonderful accomplishment for Lauren, Ashleigh and Amanda.”
The NACGC/W annually awards Scholastic All-America honors to student-athletes who finish the current academic school year with a 3.5 grade point average or higher.
LSU will open the 2010 season Jan. 8 when the Tigers host Maryland in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.