LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 21, 2025) – The American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) announced the recipients of their Team Academic Award sponsored by INTENT, as North Alabama Beach Volleyball was honored with the distinction Monday morning.
UNA's beach volleyball program continues to show their excellence in the classroom with another academic achievement for the 2024-25 year. This marks the fourth honor in the program's history and third-straight, earning the academic honor in 2020, 2023 and 2024.
The Lions have been no stranger to receiving academic awards and achievements from this past season. Along with the Team Academic Award, six individual Lions won 2025 postseason scholastic honors. Selma Robinson and Ryenne Gepford made the Academic All-ASUN team back on April 23, with the two also making the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District team along with Katy Floyd and Lucy Wedding on June 17.
"I'm really proud of the dedication our team has shown and continues to show in the classroom," said UNA Beach Volleyball Head Coach Kaleb VanDePerre. "As we've grown in size and become more competitive, we've remained competitive on the GPA side of things too. It's something we talk about regularly: not sacrificing one area to be great in another, so let's be great at a lot. The team has really taken that challenge and risen to it."
Initiated in the 1992-93 academic year, the AVCA Team Academic Award honors volleyball teams that maintain a year-long grade-point average of 3.3 on a 4.0 scale or 4.1 on a 5.0 scale.
The Lions were among a record-breaking 1,450 collegiate and high school volleyball programs that qualified for the distinction, including North Alabama's indoor volleyball team. This marks the second-straight year that the AVCA had a record number of recipients.
North Alabama was also among seven total teams from the Atlantic Sun Conference, as Austin Peay, EKU, FGCU, Jacksonville, North Florida and Stetson all received team academic honors from the AVCA.
For more information on North Alabama Athletics, visit www.roarlions.com and follow UNA Athletics on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
