Junior Liz Phillips Earns First-Team Academic All-America Honors

ACADEMIC ALL-AMERICA TEAMS

St. Louis, Mo., June 23, 2011 — Washington University in St. Louis women’s cross country and track & field junior Liz Phillips was named a Capital One First-Team Academic All-American, it was announced Thursday by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Phillips is the first Washington University women’s track & field student-athlete to garner Academic All-America honors since Morgen Leonard-Fleckman received first-team accolades in 2008. She is just the fifth female in program history to receive first-team Academic All-America honors.

A biomedical engineering major with a 4.0 cumulative grade point average, Phillips competed at three NCAA Championship meets in 2010-11, earning All-America honors in three events.

With a 23rd place showing at the 2010 NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships in the fall, Phillips helped the Bears record a program-best second-place finish at the national meet. She also earned first-team All-University Athletic Association (UAA) honors after leading Washington University to the conference championship with a fourth-place individual finish.

Phillips was named the NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field Elite 88 winner at the Indoor Track & Field Championships in March, an award presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade point average at each NCAA Championship. There she helped the women’s distance medley relay team capture second place and the relay’s qualifying time of 11:48.98 set a new school record.

Phillips tacked on two more All-America performances at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships, placing sixth in the 800-meter run and the 1,500-meter run. She set a new school record in the 800-meter preliminaries at the NCAA meet with a time of 2:11.05, and qualified for the 1,500-meter with a school-record time of 4:28.10.

An Academic All-UAA honoree, she also earned U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) All-Academic accolades in cross country.