Northeast Range/Ely didn’t have the largest team in Section 7A and in fact was one of the smallest.
The Nighthawks weren’t really a factor in the race for the section title and only a handful of them made it to the final round of the section meet.
But when it came to academics, the Nighthawks towered over the rest of the section.
Northeast Range/Ely is this year’s Section 7A Academic Champion.
The team’s grade point average is a staggering 3.97, topping nearly a dozen section rivals in the classroom and closing in on one of the best in the state.
“I was at the state tournament and trying to keep track of it and we had to be one of the top-three (GPAs) in all of Class A - a great ranking at the state level,” said NRE Head Coach Cheri DeBeltz.
The academic award is sponsored and coordinated by the state’s high school swimming coaches association, and the award is tabulated based on the grades compiled by swimmers in 10th through 12th grades.
The grades of NRE swimmers Via DeBeltz, Tuuli Koivisto, Alyssa Ice, Moon Vetos-Keen, Jorden Borchert and Bela Moskowitz were
used to determine the Nighthawks’ team GPA.
DeBeltz first announced that the team won the award during the team’s season-ending banquet earlier in the month.
“We really do pride ourselves on the girls being able to do well in academics,” she said. “We preach that they’re students before athletes. Athletics is, of course, important to us, but we strive to have these girls perform well in school. And if they perform in school, they’ll be better athletes. They’ll be better focused. They’ll be better all-around everything.”
