College Women’s Lacrosse News – Guilford’s Garcia Earns Academic Honors

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Guilford College’s E’leyna Garcia (Plantation, Fla./Plantation Prep) was elected to the NCAA Division III Capital One Academic All-District ® 5 At-Large Team by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Eâ??leyna Garcia 2014

CoSIDA members nominated and selected the Academic All-District ® teams. The squads are comprised of student-athletes in crew, fencing, field hockey, golf, gymnastics, lacrosse, rifle, skiing, swimming, golf and tennis from Division III institutions in the 10-state area from Virginia to Mississippi. Nominees were starters or important reserves of sophomore academic standing or above who maintained at least a 3.3 grade point average. As First-team Academic All-District® honorees, Garcia advances to the Capital One Academic All-America® Team ballot, where first-, second- and third-team All-America honorees will be selected June 4.

Garcia recently completed the best women’s lacrosse season in Guilford history and helped the Quakers rewrite the school record book. The 5-10 junior attacker earned Third Team All-America honors from SynapseSports.com and is the Quakers’ first women’s lacrosse All-American. She also received the Old Dominion Athletic Conference’s (ODAC) Women’s Lacrosse Player of the Year Award and was named First Team All-Chesapeake Region by the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches’ Association, both firsts for Guilford. Garcia also represented the Quakers on the ODAC/StellarOne Women’s Lacrosse Sportsmanship Team.

Garcia led NCAA Division III with an ODAC-record 99 goals and finished the year with 15 assists for 114 points, another Guilford standard and the nation’s 10-highest figure. Garcia ranked second in Division III with 5.82 goals per game and fifth with 6.71 points per outing. Her 4.35 draw controls per contest stood 70th in the country and third in the league.

Garcia won three ODAC Player of the Week Awards, scored at least three goals in every game and totaled a league- and Guilford-best eight game-winning goals. Her school-record 10 tallies in wins over Greensboro College and Catawba College stand eighth in NCAA Division III this season. Garcia added an assist in the Catawba win and tied the Guilford mark with 11 points in the game.

Garcia shattered most of the school’s scoring standards this season and enters her final campaign with 201 goals and 258 points, both Guilford records. The 2012 Second Team All-ODAC honoree has netted at least one goal in each of her 52 college games. Garcia also ranks fifth in school history with 137 career draw controls.

Off the field, Garcia carries a 3.66 grade point average as a dean’s list psychology major. She is three-time Academic All-ODAC honoree and was inducted into Guilford’s Scholarship Society this spring. Garcia mentors teen mothers at a local YWCA and recently received one of Guilford’s prestigious Dana Scholarships for academic achievement and leadership.

First-year head coach Sarah Lamphier’s club enjoyed the finest campaign in team history. The Quakers ripped off a school-record 14-game winning streak and compiled a 15-2 overall record, the best at Guilford. Picked fifth in the league’s preseason poll, the team posted the ODAC’s first 10-0 conference mark. Guilford set or tied 15 school standards and earned the program’s first NCAA Division III South Region ranking. Lamphier could return as many as 13 letter winners in 2014, including Garcia.