BATON ROUGE – Members of the LSU Soccer program were honored for the fourth-straight season as the team most deserving of the prestigious Tiger Cup with their performance on the field, in the classroom and in the community during Sunday’s Tiger Athletic Foundation Academic Excellence Gala.
This year’s TAF Academic Excellence Gala was held on Sunday evening at the Royal Cotillion Ballroom at the LSU Student Union as members from each of LSU’s 19 varsity sports were honored during the festivities.
The recipient of the Tiger Cup is determined by combining a team’s final conference and national ranking with its performance on the field along with its cumulative team grade-point average and community service hours accumulated off the field during the previous academic year.
“The Tiger Cup is symbolic of everything the LSU Soccer program is all about. It just embodies our daily philosophy of providing our players with a well-rounded student-athlete experience,” said LSU head coach Brian Lee. “This is a reward for the many people who play a role in our success each season, which is a testament to their hard work and dedication to our program. Most important of all are our players.”
This marks the fourth-straight year in which members of the LSU Soccer team were named winners of the Tiger Cup at the TAF Academic Excellence Gala after also receiving the award in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
In 2011, the Tigers captured their fourth SEC Western Division championship and fourth at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament while posting a 13-8-1 overall record with a 8-3 mark and 24 points in conference play. That also earned the Tigers their third second-place finish in the SEC standings in four seasons.
In addition to their success on the field in 2011, members of the LSU Soccer program logged 568 hours in community service to rank No. 2 among all men’s and women’s athletic programs at LSU, which equates to an average of 23.5 community service hours completed per player. The Tigers also held the impressive 3.173 cumulative team grade-point average for the 2011 spring and fall semesters.
In addition to winning the Tiger Cup as a team for the fourth-straight year, 13 members of the soccer team were honored for their academic performance as recipients of the LSU Director’s Cup.
Among those honored as LSU Director’s Cup recipients in 2012 are Courtney Alexander, Nina Anderson, Carlie Banks, Jodi Calloway, Emily Cancienne, Natalie Ieyoub, Mo Isom, Reyna Lubin, Nicole McLaughlin, Danielle Murphy, Kellie Murphy, Amy Porter and Alex Ramsey.