Sunbird athletics at Fresno Pacific University had many successes during the 2018-19 school year in competition, service and academics. Here are some of the honors, awards and achievements accomplished by student-athletes, coaches and staff:

  • 19 All-Americans and 11 of the school’s 15 teams made postseason competition.
  • Received the PacWest Conference Community Engagement Award for the fourth time, marking the sixth straight year the department has received a service-related honor.
  • Nearly two-thirds of student-athletes finished the year with a 3.0 or better grade point average (GPA), capturing 187 academic awards and a department-wide GPA of 3.0—the highest in the NCAA era.
  • Both basketball teams began a partnership with Team Impact, a national nonprofit that connects children facing serious and chronic illnesses with local collegiate athletics teams. More at fpuathletics.com/news/2018/11/24/womens-basketball-sunbird-basketball-inks-team-impact-recruits.aspx?path=wbball.
  • Individual Sunbirds claimed the national assists leader in men’s soccer (Anthony Velarde), a co-coach of the year in women’s water polo (Bryan Suhovy) and the PacWest’s first back-to-back recipient of the league’s highest award in women’s track (Brie Courseault).
  • Five school records were broken, four Sunbirds signed professional contracts and five nationally ranked opponents fell during their visit to Fresno.

See the complete list of awards and honors at fpuathletics.com/news/2019/7/31/general-sunbirds-close-door-on-successful-2018-19-campaign.aspx

“I’m honored to have the opportunity to serve our student-athletes and staff on their journey to grow athletically, academically and holistically. It’s incredibly rewarding to watch all the hard work and sacrifice pay off as our department continues to do its best to represent the university and our community well,” said Aaron Henderson, director of athletics.

Check out these upcoming athletics events:

Sunbird Hall of Fame Dinner and Induction, September 16: fpuathletics.com/news/2019/6/17/general-fpu-athletics-announces-2019-hall-of-fame-class.aspx?path=gen

26th Annual Sunbird Golf Classic, October 21: register at giving.fresno.edu/Events.aspx?id=138 or be a sponsor at fpuathletics.com/documents/2019/7/11/Golf_Tourney.pdf?id=4015

Author

Wayne Steffen
Associate Director of Publications and Media Relations

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