Co-valedictorian continues to earn honors

Published 3:27 pm Monday, July 5, 2021

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It has only been two months since women’s soccer standout Carrie Reaver graduated as Longwood’s 2021 co-valedictorian, but she’s already made sure her future office space will be well-decorated.

Adding to a laundry list of prestigious awards that includes Big South Women’s Soccer Scholar-Athlete of the Year and the Big South Christenberry Award, Reaver was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-America Team Monday by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). Reaver was the only student-athlete from a Division I institution in the commonwealth of Virginia to appear on the 33-woman list and the lone representative from the Big South.

The award caps a decorated collegiate career that saw the Thurmont, Maryland, native graduate this past spring with a perfect 4.0 grade point average as a double major in biology and Spanish, while also anchoring Longwood’s defense as a four-year starter and three-time All-Big South selection. She is the third Longwood student-athlete to be named both valedictorian and Academic All-American in the same year, joining women’s lacrosse alumna Dana Joss (2020) and fellow women’s soccer alumna Kelsey McDonald (2015).

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Currently an associate researcher at the Mount Sinai Brain Institute in New York City and bound for medical school in 2022, the Academic All-America citation is the latest for one of the most decorated student-athletes in Longwood athletics history. Beginning with her Big South Women’s Soccer Freshman of the Year award in 2017, she went on to be named to the All-Big South team three times, including first-team recognition as a senior.

Reaver played in 63 games with 59 starts during her Lancer career, amassing 5,755 minutes on the pitch to help the Lancers to a 30-22-11 overall record and a 19-8-9 mark in Big South play. She captained the team as a junior and senior, including this past season when Longwood opened the season on a seven-game unbeaten streak and reached the semifinals of the Big South Championship tournament.

Also a three-time CoSIDA Academic All-District III honoree, Reaver becomes Longwood’s third Academic All-American of the Division I era and 14th overall, dating back to 1983. She joins Joss and McDonald as the most recent additions to that list and gives Longwood Academic All-America awards in back-to-back years for the third time, following former women’s golfer Tina Barrett’s three consecutive awards from 1986-88 and former baseball player Evan Weinstein’s two straight in 2003 and 2004.

Reaver’s Academic All-America citation adds to a record-setting year in the classroom for Longwood student-athletes in 2020-21, who set department GPA records for both the spring of 2021 and the academic year as a whole. Reaver was named to the President’s List both semesters – and every semester at Longwood – and became the fourth Longwood student-athlete of the past seven years to be named Longwood’s valedictorian and winner of the Sally Barksdale Hargrett Prize alongside McDonald (2015), Spradlin (2019) and Joss (2020).