Jessica Jones
Dana MeckeFRISCO ?
UTSA juniors Jessica Jones and Dana Mecke have been named to the 2008-09 Southland Conference Women’s Cross Country/Track & Field All-Academic Team, the league office announced Wednesday.
The league academic award is the second for Jones, a Fort Bend Hightower High School product who totes a 3.00 grade-point average in business. She is a two-time Southland Conference champion in the 100-meter hurdles and recently competed in her second consecutive NCAA Midwest Regional after clocking a personal-best and regional-qualifying 13.63 to win her second straight SLC crown on May 10 in Nacogdoches, Texas.
Jones met the regional-qualifying standard of 13.92 twice and also won the UTEP Invitational and Rice Twilight during the outdoor campaign. She also raced to gold in the 60m hurdles with a career-best 8.48 at the SLC Indoor Championships in February and peeled of an 8.66 to place 22nd at the prestigious New Balance Invite in New York City.
A two-time member of the SLC Commissioner’s Honor Roll, Jones received the Kevin Collins Endowed Scholarship this spring.
Mecke, a Smithson Valley High product who carries a 3.93 gpa in mechanical engineering, garnered her third SLC All-Academic Team honor and twice earned the league’s top award for academic and athletics success combined this year, as she was named SLC Student-Athlete of the Year for women’s cross country and indoor track & field before taking a redshirt during the outdoor campaign.
Last fall, she captured the program’s first individual conference crown in cross country since 1996 in winning the SLC Championship with a 6,000-meter time of 21:39, her seventh victory of the year. Mecke collected SLC Athlete of the Week accolades five times during the season.
Mecke was tabbed SLC Indoor Outstanding Track Performer following a career performance at the conference championships in February. She swept the 800 meters (2:13.00) and mile (5:00.35) and anchored the distance medley relay team to gold en route to scoring a team-high 22.5 points at the two-day meet.
Mecke was recently named to the CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District VI First Team, which places her on the Academic All-America ballot to be voted on later this month. She also collected this year’s UTSA Academic Athlete of the Year honor and Pat Clynes Letterman’s Award, and has been named to the SLC Commissioner’s Honor Roll and UTSA President’s (4.0 gpa) or Dean’s (3.75 gpa) list five times.
Stephen F. Austin’s Amy Shackleford was named SLC Women’s Outdoor Track & Field Student-Athlete of the Year. Also named to the SLC All-Academic Team were DeAnn Washington of McNeese State, Leslie Bourgeois of Nicholls, Andrea Warren and Jessica Tuck of Northwestern State, Bridget Costello, Kristi Hermes, Tiana Lee and Dess Meek of Sam Houston State, Dorcus Kapkiai of Southeastern Louisiana, Kaitlyn Andrews, Silent-Joy Egboba-Waye and Frednisha Marshall of Stephen F. Austin, Caroline Erlingson of UT Arlington, Meghan Lemke and Anne Ronoh of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Heather Bullin, Tenley Determan, Jannah Evans, Katie Evans, Jennifer Matthews and Mary Beth O’Connor of Texas State.