The California Community College Women's Basketball Coaches Association is proud of its coaches' long tradition of putting the "student" in student-athlete. And this year it is proving it again.
Seventy-eight players from 38 colleges have been named to the 2019-20 CCCWBCA Academic All-State Team, one of the group's longest lists of honorees to date.
Three of those players - Natasha Dillon, Zoe Stachowski and Kelli Murakami-Hanashiro.
Stachowski and Murakami-Hanashiro helped lead Irvine Valley to its third Orange Empire Conference title in a row this past season.
The squad finished with a record of 25-3 overall and went 12-0 in conference. Irvine Valley was the No. 6 seed in the So. Cal. Regional Playoffs and reached the playoff regional final for the second year in a row. The team had a record of 48-9 over the last two seasons.
This past season, Stachowski, a center, averaged 16.4 points and 12.9 rebounds overall. She was named first team all-conference. Stachowski recorded a 3.76 grade point average.
Murakami-Hanashiro, a guard, averaged 3.4 points and 1.0 assists per game. She had a big game with 10 points and two three-pointers to help IVC beat Fullerton, 64-49, to complete an unbeaten conference campaign. She recorded a 3.63 grade point average.
Dillon was part of the 2018-19 team that went 23-6 overall and 12-2 in conference and averaged 1.0 points and 1.6 rebounds per game. Dillon recorded a 3.74 grade point average.
She was also named as Irvine Valley's female Champion of Character award winner through the conference last year. Entering the college at only 16 years of age, graduated at age 18 with an AA and two Certificates of Achievement in Administration of Justice in just four semesters.
Incredibly, 13 of the 78 players on the CCCWBCA team have maintained a 4.0 grade point average while competing on their college basketball teams.
Eight other student-athletes on this list had a GPA of 3.9 or above.
To qualify for Academic All-State recognition the student-athletes had to complete a year of play on their teams, earn at least 24 units of credit and maintain a minimum 3.5 GPA. For more information about this honor, go on the cccaasports.org website, find the Constitution & Bylaws and see Form U.
The full list of the 2019-20 CCCWBCA Academic All-State Team can be viewed here