IRVINE, Calif. – Dominican athletics reclaimed its spot as the top academic program in the Pacific West Conference after earning the 2020-21 Academic Achievement Award on Thursday.

"I couldn't be prouder of our student-athletes," Dominican athletic director Amy Henkelman said. "It was by far the hardest year in the books for them with COVID, navigating the return to practice, return to play, online classes, testing almost weekly, working in pods, and going through constant change. To still put academics as their top priority speaks volumes to the type of student-athletes they are. It also shows the quality of student-athlete our coaches recruit and their work this year to keep everyone on the same path and goal given the COVID year. I would also like to thank our [faculty athletic representative], Dr. Leeds, President Mary Marcy, Paul Raccannelo and former associate AD Phil Billeci-Gard because without their support and help it would not have been possible."

The Penguins set a new program and conference record with a 3.623 GPA in the 2020-21 academic year besting reigning academic champ Point Loma Nazarene University. The Sea Lions finished with a 3.52 GPA and were joined by Azusa Pacific (3.48) and Biola (3.451) in setting school records and finishing with top-10 GPAs in PacWest history.

This is the 10th academic achievement award for Dominican in its 12 years as a member of the PacWest. The Penguins won the award in each of their first six seasons with the conference before starting a three-peat in 2016-17. The conference-wide GPA also has steadily improved the past three years with a new conference record GPA of 3.312 in 2020-21, besting last year's 3.304 conference GPA.