By Beth Renkoski

06/19/06

Seekins and Schmidt Highlight 2005-06 for Vanguard Athletics

Costa Mesa, Calif – The 2005-06 school year was another success for the 13-sport athletic department at Vanguard University. Senior Levi Seekins and junior Kelly Schmidt, both forwards on VU’s basketball teams, claimed Athlete of the Year laurels for the Lions, highlighting a year when five teams represented Vanguard at an NAIA National Tournament. Vanguard’s Athlete’s of the Year also joined Laura Bowman as Vanguard’s Champions of Character, and were among the 23 Lions who made NAIA All-America teams. In addition, five Lion teams were also recognized by the NAIA as Buffalo Funds Five-Star Award winners, a new national award given to teams of character.

Vanguard’s Athletes of the Year are first-time winners who took opposite roads to the same final destination. Both out-of-state athletes, Seekins hails from Elmer City, Washington and Schmidt is an Arizona resident from Glendale. Seekins came to Vanguard as a freshman and virtually worked his way on to the men’s basketball team, hustling into limited playing time as a collegiate rookie and totaling just over 100 points in his first two seasons on the team. By his junior year, Seekins had become a part-time starter and averaged 10 points per game, but above all his work ethic and team attitude stood out the most. Finally, one of three 4-year seniors, Seekins blossomed as a player and had a career-year in 2005-06. He not only led the team in scoring (16.2 ppg) and rebounding (6.2 rpg), but he became the go-to guy in tight situations. Seekins hit key buckets near the end of the season that allowed the Lions to finish in third place in the GSAC, VU’s highest men’s basketball finish since the 1996-97 season. Seekins leadership and production on the court also earned him an All-GSAC award and a selection to the NAIA All-America Honorable Mention team. Levi’s senior year was a true Cinderella story where those who watched his career develop were able to witness first hand the rewards of years of hard work. His efforts pushed the Lions to their first NAIA National Tournament in 16 years, and to the program’s best record, 20-13, since 1996-97.

Schmidt is also a hard worker, but her success in Vanguard basketball came much quicker in her career. Moving into a starting role as a freshman, Schmidt helped the Lions win the program’s fifth conference championship in 2004 and earned her first NAIA and GSAC awards. She tacked on her third All-GSAC and NAIA All-America title as a junior this year, driving the Lions to a fourth straight conference crown and an eighth NAIA National Tournament appearance. Averaging a team-high 20.7 points and second-highest 7.3 rebounds per game, the team captain also led the Lions to a 31-2 record as they finished tied for fifth at the NAIA National Tournament. She capped her third season as a Lion with her second GSAC Player of the Year honor and her first NAIA Player of the Year award. She currently holds the VUSC school record for career points and rebounds and increases those marks with each game she plays. Schmidt will be back for her senior year in 2006-07 with the hope of grabbing the university’s first NAIA National Championship.

Seekins and Schmidt were also recognized for the character displayed in competition and as a student-athlete on the Vanguard campus. Well-known and respected on campus, the basketball pair joins Bowman as Vanguard’s individual Champions of Character. Bowman, from Goleta, California, was VU’s Cross Country Champions of Character representative at the NAIA National Cross Country meet and has established a fine overall Vanguard career, attaining two NAIA Scholar-Athlete awards and competing in two national events this year alone. A two-sport athlete with a 3.93 GPA in Communications, Bowman helped VU’s Cross Country team have its most successful season ever and finished ninth individually in the 3000m Steeplechase at the 2006 NAIA Outdoor Track and Field Nationals.

In team competition, Vanguard’s lone conference title came in the form of a fourth consecutive Golden State Athletic Conference Championship in women’s basketball, as the Lions stormed to an unblemished 20-0 mark, establishing a new conference record for GSAC wins in a season. The Lion women were also the top-ranked team in the NAIA the entire season for the first time in school history, and placed four players on the NAIA All-America teams.

The men’s basketball success was also a news-breaking event with the Lions in reach of a conference title for the first time since the mid 1990s. However, Vanguard had to settle for a very respectable third place as GSAC Player of the Year Horace Wormely led the Lions to only the second NAIA National Tournament in the program’s history, losing in overtime in the first round.

In addition, women’s cross country, men’s tennis, and women’s tennis joined the basketball teams in representing the university at their respective national tournament. Women’s Cross Country finished a program-high 13th place in the fall with freshman Grace Jepngetich claiming NAIA All-America honors by finishing 17th overall.

Men’s and Women’s Tennis made their 11th and 6th NAIA appearances, respectively, with both squads losing in the quarterfinals to tie for fifth place in the 24-team tournaments. The tennis teams combined for six places on the NAIA All-America lists, including team captains Dieter Weislmaier and Amy Brown, and freshman Hana Jurcovicova, who was voted the NAIA/ITA NAIAWomen’s Rookie Player of the Year.

Vanguard University was also extremely well represented in the NAIA’s Buffalo Funds Five-Star Award program, a newly created Champions of Character award system that acknowledges one team throughout the nation for all of the 23 sports that the NAIA sponsors a national championship for during the year. Vanguard, who has a total of 13 sports, had five sports (men’s cross country, women’s basketball, women’s tennis, men’s track and field, and women’s track and field) earn the NAIA’s Buffalo Funds Five-Star Award this year.

Individually, Vanguard athletes succeeded at a high rate in and out of athletic competition. Thirty Lions made the All-GSAC team, with seven taking All-Region II honors, and 23 seizing a place on the NAIA All-America teams. Jepngetich and Humberto Rojas, both two-sport athletes at VUSC, claimed All-America honors in Cross Country and Indoor Track and Field in their first year of competition at Vanguard. Schmidt, the 2006 NAIA Women’s Basketball Player of the Year, led a quartet of Lion basketball players to the All-America team, while Seekins and Wormely closed their careers with their first All-American selection in men’s basketball. Four other seniors made an All-American appearance on their respective teams, including Mark Babel (Men’s Soccer Honorable Mention), Matt Meyer (Indoor Track and Field 1st Team), Andreas Reckziegel (Men’s Tennis 2nd Team), and Jenny Thune (Outdoor Track and Field 1st Team).

Academically, the Lions had 24 student-athletes make the Academic All-GSAC team and a total of 22 Lions who qualified for an NAIA Scholar-Athlete award. Requiring a junior academic status and at least a 3.5 GPA for the awards, Meyer leaves Vanguard with an impressive four Scholar-Athlete awards as he completed his four-year, two-sport athletic career at Vanguard. Two other graduating seniors who made the Scholar-Athlete list also were recognized by Vanguard University with the highest academic honor for seniors in their major. Pitcher Michael Guernsey, who carried a 3.98 GPA, was named the Accounting Major of the Year, while Track and Field’s Megan Leapaldt registered VU’s President’s and Dean’s Award with a 4.0 grade point average as the Most Outstanding Communications student. Nine of 13 team sports posted a 3.0 grade point average or higher this spring and nine Vanguard teams have an accumulative grade point average of 3.0 or higher at the conclusion of this semester. The entire athletic department, nearly 160 total athletes, had an overall GPA of 3.05 during the spring of 2006.

The significance of the successes of the Vanguard University Athletic Department equaled a 19th place finish in the 2004-05 Sports Academy Directors’ Cup a year ago. This year’s final results are yet to be tallied, but VUSC was in 16th place in this year’s most recent standings. The Lions will find out later this month where they will finish when the final standings are released, usually at the annual National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Convention. Regardless of what the final standings reveal, it has been another very successful year for the Lions in and out of competition. VUSC is proud of the 2005-06 Lions and will push for an even higher standard of Gold Pride next year.