Wittenberg Student-Athletes Earn Academic All-District Honors

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Kellen Morrissey (left) and Francine Murzynski (right).

Springfield, Ohio — Senior Kellen Morrissey (Aurora, Colo./Smoky Hill) and junior Francine Murzynski (Mentor, Ohio/Lake Catholic) have been recognized for the combination of their athletic and academic accomplishments with first-team Capital One Academic All-America College Division All-District 7 honors.

Morrissey was a four-year standout in both field hockey and wome’s lacrosse, where she has been joined each of the last three years by Murzynski. Both field hockey and women’s lacrosse are grouped in a category called "Women's At-Large," which encompasses numerous sports, also including swimming and diving, golf and tennis, among others. The district awards are a result of online voting conducted recently by members of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Only student-athletes who make the first team in district voting, as Morrissey and Murzynski did, can be considered for Academic All-America awards, which will be announced later this month. Both student-athletes are making their first appearance on the Academic All-District list.

Murzynski recently earned third-team All-America honors from Synapse Sports, shortly after she was named first-team All-Great Lakes Region by the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association. A second-team all-region honoree in 2012, Murzynski also earned first-team All-North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) awards following each of the last two seasons.

Murzynski has played a key role in the Tigers’ success the last two years as Wittenberg has compiled record of 24-9 overall and 14-0 in the NCAC regular season. In 2013, she ranked second on the team in goals with 39 and total points with 63, while leading the Tigers by a wide margin in assists with 24. A year after smashing the school record for draw controls in a season, Murzynski topped the team again in that category with 62, the second-best total in program history, and she also led Wittenberg with 29 caused turnovers.

Off the field, Murzynski is a business major who has volunteered at the Westcott House, a museum in Springfield originally built by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. She is a member of Delta Gamma sorority, and she studies through the University Honors Program.

Morrissey earned three All-NCAC awards and three All-Great Lakes Region honors in field hockey, and she capped her career with an appearance in the prestigious National Field Hockey Coaches Association Division III Senior Game in November 2012. She was just as dynamic in lacrosse, earning first-team All-NCAC honors three times and all-region honors in 2012 while ranking among the team leaders in almost every statistical category.

She earned academic recognition from the National Field Hockey Coaches Association all four years of her collegiate career, and Morrissey also garnered the coveted NCAC Student-Athlete Award, presented annually to Wittenberg student-athletes who perform with distinction both in the classroom and on the playing field, in 2013.

Off the field, Morrissey was active on campus in numerous honoraries, clubs and organizations while working toward her degree in mathematics, with minors in business and education. She was a member of Delta Gamma sorority and Wittenberg’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, and she participated in a community service trip to the impoverished kingdom of Lesotho in Africa.

Written By: Ryan Maurer