Elite 17 Award winner
Brad Carpenter of Missouri State headlines the 2019 Missouri Valley Conference Men's Golf Scholar-Athlete Team as announced by the league office Friday (May 3). Carpenter is joined on the first team by teammate
Kory Franks, while another Bear,
Lukas McCalla, received honorable mention.
Carpenter and Franks are just two of six repeat first team selections on the unit, joined by Drake Bushong and Michael Mounce of Bradley, Peyton Willhoit of Southern Illinois and David Perkins of Illinois State. The two other members of the eight-man first team are Mitchell Wittman of Valparaiso and Hunter York of Southern Illinois. Joining McCalla in receiving honorable mention are Daniel Lensing of Bradley, Carter Stochl of UNI and Orion Yamat of Loyola.
For Carpenter, this marks the second time in three years he's taken home the Valley's Elite 17 honor, which goes to the top-18 finisher in the conference tournament with the highest grade-point average. He placed fourth this year, earned all-conference honors and set the school single-season scoring mark with a 71.88 average. He accomplished all that while maintaining a 3.79 GPA pursuing a Master's degree in Business Management. Franks, who finished second at the MVC tournament, has a 3.60 GPA while majoring in Finance, and McCalla has a 3.97, also in Finance.
The criteria for the MVC scholar-athlete team parallels the CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) standards for academic Academic All-America® program. Nominees must have at least a 3.20 cumulative grade point average (4.0 scale), while the student-athletes must have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at their institutions and must have participated in at least 50 percent of her team's rounds or played at the MVC Championship. The team is voted on by the league's golf sports information directors.
