COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Ten University of Colorado Colorado Springs women's cross country student-athletes received 2020 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference All-Academic honors, announced today by the conference office, including three that were voted to the First Team.  Layla Almasri (Colorado Springs, Colo.), Hannah Ellis (Greeley, Colo.) and Vanessa Roybal (Millani, Hawaii) were voted to the RMAC All-Academic First Team while Sarah Bassett (Colorado Springs, Colo.), Natalie Church (Snohomish, Wash.), Emily Gentry (Monument, Colo.), Jenny Smith (Colorado Springs, Colo.), Meg Super (Minot, N.D.), Erika Timbang (Longmont, Colo.) and Molly Weir (Rockford, Mich.) received Honor Roll accolades.
 
Colorado School of Mines' Zoe Baker has been named the 2020 RMAC Cross Country Academic Runner of the Year.  The award winners, along with other First Team All-Academic members, were voted on by the conference's sports information directors. To be eligible for consideration, a student-athlete must have been an active student at the institution for at least two consecutive semesters or three consecutive quarters and carry a cumulative 3.30 grade point average (GPA).
 
All student-athletes that met those requirements but were not selected for First Team automatically qualified for Honor Roll. Due to Covid-19, Regis and CSU Pueblo who opted out of the season were eligible for Honor Roll honors.  One hundred and forty-three men and women earned All-Academic recognition this season, including 74 student-athletes on the women's side which marked the third highest number for women's cross country.

A two-time RMAC All-Academic Honor Roll performer, redshirt-junior Layla Almasri is making her first appearance on the RMAC All-Academic First Team. A Health Care Science major with a 3.485 GPA, Almasri ran to an All-RMAC First Team performance after placing eighth overall at the 2020 RMAC Championship meet with a personal best 6K time of 21:58.3. Almasri, who competed in all four meets for UCCS this season, posted a season best 5K time of 18:34.5 at the West Texas Buffalo Stampede on Oct. 9. 
 
Junior Hannah Ellis owns a 3.925 GPA in Nursing and is making her second appearance on the RMAC All-Academic team after being named to the Honor Roll in 2019.  Ellis finished in the Top-10 of every race this season.  Her ninth-place finish at the RMAC Championship meet was her highest finish at a conference championship as she recorded a personal best time of 22:04.0.  Ellis entered the race after winning the individual title on Oct. 9 at the West Texas Buffalo Stampede in a 5K time of 18:23.0.  She started the season on Sept. 4 winning the UCCS Rust Buster in 18:06.1, followed by a third-place finish at the UCCS XC Open.
 
Redshirt-senior Vanessa Roybal is majoring in Mechanical Engineering and owns a perfect 4.000 GPA at UCCS.  A 2019 RMAC All-Academic Honor Roll selection, Roybal recorded a personal best time of 21:18.0 in the final regular season meet of the season.  She crossed the West Texas Buffalo Stampede 5K race in 21:18.0 to finish 31^st overall.  Roybal competed in all three regular season meets in 2020.
 
A sophomore academically, Sarah Bassett has competed in all four meets this season for UCCS.  She started the year off with a career best 5K time of 19:16.2 in the season-opening UCCS Rust Buster.  In her fourth and most recent race of the season, Bassett (Exercise Science, 3.736 GPA) added a 6K personal best time of 23:57.8 to finish 53^rd at the RMAC Championship race.
 
Earning her third straight RMAC All-Academic Cross Country Honor Roll accolade, Natalie Church is a four-sport student-athlete for the Mountain Lions.  A Geography Environmental Studies major with a 3.733 GPA at UCCCS, Church has collected seven RMAC All-Academic honors, including two First Team honors for the women's lacrosse program in 2019 and 2020. Church ran in two meets this season, finishing 18^th in the season opening Rust Buster Invite (20:42.0) and 19^th at the UCCS XC Open (20:52.3).
 
An Exercise Science major with a 3.575 GPA, sophomore Emily Gentry saw action in the first two meets of the season for UCCS. She finished 15^th overall in the season opener UCCS Rust Buster on Sept. 4, crossing the finish line in 20:09.6.  Two weeks later she posted a 23^rd place finish in 21:12.1 at the UCCS XC Open.
 
Earning RMAC All-Academic Honor Roll accolades for the third time in her career (2019, 2017), redshirt-senior Jenny Smith is majoring in Inclusive Elementary Education at UCCS with a 3.589 GPA.  Smith ran in all four meets for the Mountain Lions this season and notched personal best 6K and 5K times.  She ran to a 41^st place finish in 23:24.0 at the RMAC Championship meet on Oct. 24 and opened the season with a personal 5K best time of 19:12.1 to finish eighth overall at the UCCS Rust Buster on Sept. 4.
 
For the fourth straight year, redshirt-senior Meg Super has received RMAC All-Academic Honor Roll honors.  A Biology major with a 3.918 GPA, Super competed in the UCCS Rust Buster for the Mountain Lions on Sept. 4, posting a 16^th place finish in 20:27.9.
 
Erika Timbang owns a 3.387 GPA in Biology.  The redshirt-freshman competed in the season-opening meet on Sept. 4, notching a time of 21:36.5 to finish 23^rd overall at the UCCS Rust Buster.
 
Molly Weir is a two-time All-RMAC Second Team honoree and is earning her second RMAC All-Academic accolade in her career (2018).  She finished the RMAC Championship race with a personal best time of 22:57.3, just two weeks after tallying a 5K personal best time (18:38.3) at the West Texas Buffalo Stampede on Oct. 9.   

The Mountain Lions will close out the 2020 season on Saturday, Nov. 14 in Lubbock, Texas after qualifying for the 2020 Division II Cross Country National Invitational meet.