Novato's Janusch Earns top Academic Honors Among Dominican Athletes

Although they had hoped for better results on the field and on the court, Dominican University of California student-athletes were extremely successful in the classroom during the 2010-11 academic school year. And several of them were from Novato.

The Pacific West Conference recently announced its 2010-11 Academic All-Conference team and it features 108 Penguins student-athletes, 76 more than the previous season. In addition, 21 Dominican student-athletes repeated as PacWest Academic All-Conference performers.

Leading the Novato contingent was Kelsey Janusch, a Marin Catholic High School grad who repeated on the academic team from last year and was a standout on the women's basketball team, which finished with a 8-18 record. She started all 24 games and led the Penguins with a 12.0 scoring average.

Melissa Wise (Marin Catholic/women's basketball) made the team for the first time.

Leading the way were six Penguins women’s soccer players — Katie Brown, Christine Coleman, Bridget Folan, Michelle Mason, Kelly Miura and Marli Sangervasi — who made the PacWest All-Academic team for the second year in a row. A total of 26 players on the Dominican women’s soccer team earned All PacWest Academic status, 19 more than the previous season.

The Penguins men’s soccer team had five repeat performers on the league’s all-academic squad – two-time Dominican Male Athlete of the Year Pedro Guevara, Shane Huiberts, Tim Pinella, Derrick Wilkinson and Alec Ziegler.

Three Dominican women’s basketball players — Tammy Brawner, Kelsey Janusch and Taki Te Koi — are on the all-academic team for the second consecutive year while Penguins men’s basketball player Xavier Muldrow is on the squad again. He was the only player on the men’s basketball team to make the PacWest All-Academic team for 2009-10, but he is joined this year on the list by eight of his teammates.

Other Dominican student-athletes who earned PacWest All-Academic team accolades for a second successive year were softball players Leighia Fleming, Kellie Hislop, Jill Rizo and Shawna Robb, tennis player Michele Freitas and volleyball player Brooke Swingle.

PacWest student-athletes qualified for Academic All-Conference honors this season by maintaining a minimum 3.0 grade point average.  Last season, it was 3.30 GPA requirement and freshmen, redshirt freshman and first-year transfer students were not eligible.

More than 700 student-athletes representing 11 intercollegiate sports, including baseball, were recognized this season. Dominican’s 108 Academic All Conference honorees come from 10 sports.

Dominican is Marin County's only university.