Scholar All-American Team Honors x 5

MOORHEAD, Minn. (3/22/16)—For the fifth time in the last seven seasons Concordia earned National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) Academic Scholar All-American Team honors. The Cobbers finished 12th in all of NCAA Division III in team grade point average and earned. The Cobbers also had three student/athletes earn Scholar All-American honors.

Concordia had a team grade point average of 3.26 and was the 12th highest ranked team in all of NCAA Division III. The Cobbers were one of only three teams Minnesota and Iowa to finish in the top 15 of the nation. The Scholar All-American Team award marks the fifth time in the past seven seasons that Concordia has earned the academic honor.

The team GPA is calculated as an average of the top 10 students on each team. At least six of the ten athletes chosen must have competed in the NCAA qualifying tournament, and the other athletes must have competed in at least 50% of the team's scheduled contests.  

Senior Gabe Foltz and sophomores Ricky Briggs and Jakob Stageberg all earned NWCA Division III Scholar All-American honors  - the highest individual academic honor handed out by the NWCA. It is the second straight year for Foltz and Stageberg to earn the honor. Foltz has a 3.57 grade point average while majoring in Environmental Studies while Stageberg is an Accounting major and has a 3.68 GPA. Briggs is also an Accounting major and carries a 3.22 GPA.

To qualify as an NWCA Scholar All-American, a wrestler must be in at least his second semester at a school. His GPA must be at least 3.2 and he must either be a 2016 NCAA Qualifier with a record above .500, finished in the top 6 of the Regional and have greater than a .500 record and competed in at least 50-percent of the team's schedule or have a winning percentage above 67-percent and competed in at least 50-percent of the team's schedule.

The three Concordia student/athletes helped the Cobbers finish second at the NCAA West Regional Meet and be ranked in the top 25 of the nation for the majority of the season. Concordia also posted their third straight top 4 finish at the NWCA Duals Meet and qualified six athletes for the Division III National Meet.

2015-2016 Top 20 NWCA Division III Scholar Teams
1. King's (Pa.) - 3.49
2. Williams College - 3.42                              
3. New York University - 3.36                     
4. Johns Hopkins - 3.36                 
5. Norwich - 3.35                             
6. Wisconsin-La Crosse - 3.33                     
7. Washington and Lee - 3.30                     
8. Wisconsin-Stevens Point - 3.29                            
9. Wheaton - 3.28           
10. Augsburg - 3.27                         
11. Worcester Polytechnic - 3.26                              
12. Concordia Moorhead - 3.26                 
13. Olivet - 3.25                
14. Washington and Jefferson - 3.25                       
15. Wisconsin-Eau Claire - 3.24                  
16. Wilkes - 3.24                               
17. Wabash - 3.20                            
18. St. John's - 3.20                         
19. Trinity - 3.19                               
20. Luther - 3.18