Golf’s Kane Ybarra has been selected to the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America® NAIA At-Large Team. He is the first golfer at OLLU to earn this honor.
The NAIA Academic All-America® program is financially supported by the NAIA national governance structure to assist CoSIDA with handling the awards fulfillment aspects for the 2019-2020 NAIA Academic All-America® teams. Despite the cancellation of spring competition during the COVID-19, CoSIDA continued its sponsorship of the Academic All-America awards program. Student-athletes were selected based on career statistics.
The at-large program for the Academic All-America® program includes the sports of fencing, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, rifle, skiing, swimming and diving, tennis, water polo, bowling, crew and field hockey; and volleyball and wrestling for men.
The CoSIDA Academic All-America® NAIA Men’s At-Large Team produced an average GPA of 3.82 with the first team combining for an average GPA of 3.85. Ybarra had a GPA of 3.70.
Ybarra, who has been part of the Saints golf team for four years, has been a part of the NAIA Scholar Team recognition all four years. He received NAIA All-American honors, and All-Conference recognition in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. In his freshman year, Ybarra was named conference player of the year and freshman/newcomer of the year. He has also received conference scholar-athlete awards all four years. This past year, he was his team’s Top Saint.