GICC's Statler to sign with Hastings College

Grand Island Central Catholic's Alicia Statler will sign to play basketball at Hastings College on Wednesday.

Statler stands second on GICC's all-time scoring list and became the second girl in city history to pass the 1,000 point mark for her career. Statler was named captain of The Independent's All-Heartland Super Squad as well as Class C-2 first-team all-state by the Journal Star and second-team all-state by the Omaha World-Herald.

Statler also participated in track, cross country, volleyball, band, school musicals and is an active member of the student council.

G.I. Islanders win tournament bracket

The Grand Island Islanders eighth grade boys basketball team took first place in its bracket at the 27th annual Lincoln MIT Tournament

The Islanders went 3-0 in the tournament with wins over Beatrice Orange, Lincoln Boltz and Lincoln Bulldogs.

Team members are: Spencer Wichert, Jake Farias, Carter Duis, Taylor Valderaz, Kyle Wojtalewicz, Andy King, Dylan Urias, Cale Benson, Joe Garcia and Taylor Mullen.

The team is coached by Jim Hruby and Ray Chavez.

UNK team recognized for academic success

KEARNEY The Nebraska-Kearney wrestling team once again showed that it is very successful both on and off the mat.

The 2008 NCAA Division II national champions recorded the nation's second highest team grade point average (3.334) for the 2007-08 academic year. UNK's team GPA trailed only Truman State University of Missouri (3.394).

The NCAA Division II Wrestling Coaches Association recently released its 15th annual All-Academic team, as well as the top 15 team GPA's nationally.

A team's GPA is calculated by averaging the GPA averages of 10 wrestlers from each team, of which, eight of those wrestlers must have competed in their team's qualifying regional tournament.

In 2004, the Lopers led the nation in GPA. Last year, the team was sixth.

On the individual All-Academic team, UNK had six representatives. Making the first-team were seniors Tervel Dlagnev (3.08/Biology), Joe Ellenberger (3.58/Industrial Distribution) and Jeff Rutledge (3.58/Health and P.E.), junior Keenan McCurdy (3.62/Elementary Education) and sophomore Ryan Etherton (3.55/Exercise Science).

Finally, junior Paul Sutton (3.11/Exercise Science) was on the second-team.

All six of these wrestlers qualified for the NCAA Division II Championships. Dlagnev and Rutledge are two of only seven individuals to make the team for a fourth time with EllenbergerNW is one of nine wrestlers on the squad for a third season.