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As if her resume wasn’t already loaded with accolades, Longwood University’s co-valedictorian, two-time Big South Scholar-Athlete of the Year and All-Big South first-team women’s soccer defender, senior Carrie Reaver, added one more prestigious honor to her already impressive list.

Announced Wednesday, May 19, by the Big South Conference, Reaver was selected as a recipient of the Big South Conference Christenberry Award for Academic Excellence, which goes annually to Big South student-athletes who attain the league’s highest cumulative grade point averages during their undergraduate collegiate careers. Reaver was one of eight graduating seniors in the conference to maintain a perfect 4.0 grade point average throughout her student-athlete career.

A double major in biology and Spanish, Reaver is the second Longwood student-athlete to earn the Big South Christenberry Award, following women’s lacrosse standout Dana Joss in 2020. Reaver, who graduated from Longwood this past Saturday, will spend next year as an associate researcher at the Mount Sinai Brain Institute in New York City before attending medical school.

Big South member institutions nominate one male and one female undergraduate student-athlete for the annual Christenberry Award. The honor is named for George A. Christenberry, the former President of Augusta College (now Augusta University) and one of the founders of the Big South Conference. A member of the Big South Hall of Fame, Christenberry served as the league’s first President from 1983-86.

Reaver was nominated for this year’s award alongside fellow Lancer Colin Caporal, a business administration major on the men’s golf team.

The Christenberry Award is the latest honor in a four-year career full of them for Reaver, who this year alone emerged as one of the most decorated student-athletes in Longwood’s 100-plus years of athletics competition. As an All-Big South first-team defender – the third such all-conference award of her career – she helped the Lancer women’s soccer team to a fourth-place Big South finish and a seven-game unbeaten streak while serving as the anchor of Longwood’s vaunted backline. She contributed to five shutouts as the Lancers surrendered the third-fewest goals in the Big South.

The honors kept rolling in for Reaver up through her 2021 graduation ceremony, where she was crowned co-valedictorian of Longwood University’s 2021 senior class and was also the recipient of the university’s prestigious Sally Barksdale Hargrett Prize. That award, along with the notoriety of being presented with the university’s top academic honor, also includes a postgraduate scholarship, which Reaver will use for medical school.

A native of Thurmont, Maryland, Reaver continues a longstanding tradition of success in the Longwood women’s soccer program that stretches back to the early years of 27th-year head coach Todd Dyer’s tenure. She is the second member of the team to be crowned Longwood University valedictorian, following former All-Big South defender Kelsey McDonald’s award in 2015. Her senior teammate Madison Hommey also received a pair of prestigious awards alongside Reaver’s this week as well, including the Longwood University Dan Daniel Senior Award for Scholarship and Citizenship at Commencement and the Bob McCloskey Insurance Big South Conference Graduate Fellowship Tuesday.