Aug. 9, 2007

Chicago, Ill.- The National Association of Collegiate Gymnastics Coaches/Women (NACGC/W) announced its final 2007 team and individual academic rankings on Wednesday (August 8th), and the UIC women's gymnastics team once again proved to be one of the nation's top squads in the classroom.

On the team level the Flames placed 38th out of 69 women's gymnastics teams around the nation with a team cumulative grade point average of 3.2412 on a 4.0 scale for the 2006-07 academic year.

Individually UIC featured five NACGC/W Scholastic All-Americans. Zandre Labuschagne (3.80 GPA as a biology major), Justine Jaworowicz (3.79 GPA in liberal arts and sciences), Jessie Jaworowicz (3.71 GPA as a psychology major), Tristan Erlenbaugh (3.66 GPA as a communications major) and Beth Kliver (3.57 GPA as a psychology major) gave UIC its largest amount of Scholastic All-Americans since the program had seven honorees in 2001.

It marked the third consecutive year that Jessie Jaworowicz earned the honor, while Labuschagne was selected for the second straight year.

"We are proud to be 38th in the nation with a 3.24," said UIC co-head coach Peter Jansson. "To accomplish this while competing at the Division I level and be as successful as this team was this year by winning state and conference titles, as well as qualifying for the NCAA Regionals, while posting these kind of grades is truly an achievement and shows how balanced this team was in regards to their success in the classroom and in the athletic arena."

"The individual success of having five Scholastic All-Americans out of our 13 student-athletes is something that we are very proud of."

UIC has featured at least one student-athlete on the NACGC/W Scholastic All-American list each year since 1995. The Flames have been represented as on the NACGC/W Scholastic All-American list 44 times since 1993.