MANSFIELD, Pa. – East Stroudsburg University junior Rachael Davalos and Seton Hill's Caitlyn Padgett were both announced Saturday as the PSAC Champion Scholars for women's outdoor track & field.
 
The award is presented to the student-athlete with the highest grade-point average at the PSAC championship site. Davalos and Padgett both have 4.0 grade-point averages and entered the semester with 77 credits.
 
This marks just the third time in PSAC history (all sports included) that the award has been given to two individuals at the same championship site (volleyball, 2011 and women's soccer 2018).
 
The selection criteria for the Champion Scholar Awards is identical to that of the NCAA Elite 90 awards, which honor the student-athlete with the top GPA at each of the championship finals sites of the 90 NCAA championships across all three divisions – I, II, and III.
 
Davalos (Stroudsburg, Pa./Pocono Mountain East) is an exercise science major at ESU and qualified for the 2019 PSAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships in the 1,500-meter race. She will be running for the Warriors at Mansfield on Saturday in the 4x800-meter relay.
 
She has also been a member of the women's cross country program at ESU and was named All-PSAC second-team as a sophomore after placing 34th at the NCAA Div. II Regional at Lock Haven.
 
Davalos becomes ESU's 16th Champion Scholar since the program was instituted in 2011-12, and she is the third honoree for the women's outdoor track & field program. She is ESU's fourth recipient during the 2018-19 academic year, joining Michal Weiss (men's basketball) and twins Carly Abbott and Nicole Abbott (women's soccer).