Five Polar Bears named to College Sports Communicators Women’s Academic All-District At-Large Team

Five Polar Bears named to College Sports Communicators Women’s Academic All-District At-Large Team
May 23, 2023

By Wes Mayberry

| 2022-23 CSC Women's Academic All-District At-Large Team (.pdf) |

ADA — Ohio Northern seniors Meredith Miller (Noblesville, Ind.), Amanda Wells (Mason) and Isabella Orofino (Powell/Olentangy Liberty) and juniors Gabby Monastra (Wooster) and Grace Honigford (West Chester/Lakota East) were named to the 2023 Women's Academic All-District At-Large Team by College Sports Communicators.

Miller, Wells and Monastra are members of the ONU women's lacrosse team, and Orofino and Honigford are Polar Bear golfers.

To be eligible for Academic All-District honors, each student-athlete must have at least a 3.5 GPA and have played in at least 50 percent of her team's competitions. The CSC's at-large sports include beach volleyball, bowling, crew/rowing, fencing, field hockey, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, rifle, skiing and water polo.

Miller a midfielder, was named to the All-Ohio Athletic Conference Second Team this season after starting all 17 games and tallying 10 hat tricks en route to finishing with a team-high 48 goals, which ranked seventh in the OAC, and 26 caused turnovers. The biology major added three assists and ranked second on the team in points (51), ground balls (34) and draw controls (40).

A four-year starter and three-time All-OAC honoree, Miller earned Academic All-OAC recognition in 2021 and is ONU's all-time career leader in goals (115) and points (122). She ranks second all-time in hat tricks (18), third in caused turnovers (80) and fourth in ground balls (117) and draw controls (102).

Wells, a mechanical engineering major and four-year starter in the midfield, recorded 20 points on 14 goals and six assists in 17 games, with 15 starts, in 2023. She also tallied 23 ground balls, 10 caused turnovers and a team-high 76 draw controls, which ranked fourth in the OAC.

The two-time Academic All-OAC honoree holds the program record for draw controls in a game (16) and career draw controls (220) and ranks seventh all-time in ground balls (102) in 55 games, including 53 starts. In four years at ONU, she also has 62 points on 45 goals and 17 assists to go with 39 caused turnovers.

Monastra was an All-OAC Honorable Mention selection on defense this season and was named Academic All-OAC in 2022. The pharmacy major started all 17 games and tallied 24 ground balls and 11 caused turnovers in 2023.

In 44 career games with 22 starts at ONU, Monastra has 11 points on nine goals and two assists to go with 39 ground balls, 12 caused turnovers and eight draw controls.

Orofino is a nursing major and a two-time WGCA All-America Scholar and Academic All-OAC honoree. She closed the 2022-23 season with an 18-hole average score of 87.0 over 16 rounds. Her season highlight came at the Bluffton Classic on April 2 when she shot a 78 to tie her career-best score for 18 holes and finished tied for fourth, and she placed 11th at the OAC Championships to earn her second straight All-OAC accolade.

In four years at ONU, Orofino has an 86.4 average over 47 rounds with 14 career top-10 finishes.

Honigford was a 2022-23 WGCA All-Great Lakes Region selection after closing the season as a three-time Medalist with a team-best 78.8 average for 18 holes through 20 rounds of play. She competed in 10 events and posted eight top-four finishes. A four-time OAC Golfer of the Week in 2022-23, Honigford earned Medalist honors at the Bluffton Fall Classic, DePauw (Ind.) Invitational and the Bluffton Spring Classic and capped her season with a runner-up finish at the Ohio Athletic Conference Championships.

Now a three-time All-OAC honoree, Honigford has finished in the top two at the OAC Championships in all three of her seasons at ONU. She was the 2021 tournament champion and was co-champion in 2022. At this year's OAC Championships, Honigford shot a 54-hole school-record 231 through three rounds en route to finishing with a 72-hole school-record 313.

Honigford's 78.8 average in 2023 matched her single-season program record from 2021-22. In three seasons at ONU, the mechanical engineering major and 2021-22 Academic All-OAC selection is a two-time WGCA All-America Scholar and 10-time OAC Golfer of the Week honoree with 32 top-10 finishes, including 15 Medalist honors, in 35 career tournaments.

The 2023 Academic All-District At-Large Teams, selected by College Sports Communicators, recognize the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances in athletics and in the classroom. Academic All-District honorees advance to the CSC Academic All-America ballot. First-, second- and third-team Academic All-America honorees will be announced June 22.

Under 10th-year head coach Chad Bucci, the Polar Bear women's golf team finished the 2022-23 season with a 78-12 overall record and placed second at the OAC Championships with a score of 1301, breaking the previous 72-hole school record of 1426. Northern had broken the school's 54-hole record by 15 strokes with a 961 through the first three rounds.

The Polar Bear women's lacrosse team finished the 2023 season 8-9 overall and was sixth in the OAC with a 2-5 league mark en route to making its third consecutive OAC Tournament appearance under eighth-year head coach Beth Bonnell.