The Kent State women’s basketball team’s star senior forward Lindsay Shearer was named as the 2006 ESPN The Magazine Women’s Basketball Academic All-American of the Year and was also named to the Academic All-America First Team by College Sports Information Directors of America yesterday.

“It is a really special honor to be recognized with this award, and I am extremely grateful, and a bit surprised, to be honest, to be named to the Academic All-American of the Year,” Shearer said in a press release yesterday.

Shearer, who was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Second Team last season, became the first of the Flashes to be honored with the Academic All-American accolades.

The No. 14 nationally ranked scorer with an average of 20.4 points per game is a business major and has more than a 3.95 grade point average.

“Lindsay Shearer is a very talented young lady on the court and in the classroom,” Kent State coach Bob Lindsay said in a press release. “She has proven to be the best of the best, nationally, when it comes to the balance of academic and athletic achievement. She is, without a question, a person who will be tremendously successful in whatever she chooses to do in life. We are very proud of her.”

– Kali Price