Solano College Women’s Soccer Team has been named the 2003-2004 Women’s Soccer Scholar Team of the Year by the California Commission on Athletics (COA). The Scholar Team Award is the highest academic team achievement given annually by the COA. All team members must have excelled academically with a total GPA of 3.0 or higher. The team should have also demonstrated better than average accomplishments in intercollegiate athletic competition.

The 2003 team won the Division of the Bay Valley Conference. The team grade point average for 2003 was 3.11.

The COA also announced that Danielle Biagio of the 2003 soccer squad was named as one of the eighteen members of the 2004 Pepsi Scholar Athlete Honor Roll.

The Pepsi Scholar Athlete Award is the highest student achievement honor awarded annually by the COA. The winners are selected by the COA Awards Committee from nominations made by community colleges throughout California. Candidates for the Pepsi Scholar Athlete Honor Roll must carry a minimum GPA of 3.5 and must also show outstanding leadership as an athlete, student, or in other college and community activities, as well as have participated in two seasons of sport at a California community college.

Danielle was a team captain for her two seasons at Solano, a 2002 and 2003 First Team All Bay Valley Conference Selection, academic award winner for the highest GPA on the team in 2002 and 2003, defensive MVP in 2002 and 2003, and she has been a leader on the Solano College Women’s Soccer team. She was very instrumental in leading the Inaugural 2002 and 2003 Solano Women’s Soccer team to the Bay Valley Conference Championship.

Danielle has accepted a scholarship to attend William Jessup University in Rocklin, California. She will play on the Inaugural women’s soccer team and double major in Teacher Education and Theology. She hopes to become a teacher and soccer coach.

Danielle won the Wooden Scholarship Award in 2003, which goes to the best sophomore student-athlete that has shown good sportsmanship, leadership and academic achievement. She demonstrates good sportsmanship to everyone on the field and communicates to teammates, coaches and officials representing her team well.

Off the field, she constantly helped other players with their issues and communicated to coaches on a daily basis of things the team needed to improve. She always pushed herself to improve in practice day in and day out, improving herself and her teammates around her, was always the first one ready to begin practice and helped coaches get practiced organized.

She did not miss or was not late to one practice session in her two seasons at Solano College. Danielle started and played defender every minute of every game for Solano in her two seasons. Her sportsmanship and dedication to the team, her coaches and the sport of soccer are unmatched. She focuses on playing soccer and does not let opponents, officials or any other distractions get in her way of playing the sport she loves and spends so much of her time dedicating herself to.

Most importantly, she is an exceptional student who puts academics first. She truly exhibits what it is to be a student-athlete.

For more information please contact Bob Myers at 707-864-7126 or see the COA web site.

Bob Myers
Dean of Physical Education and Athletics
Solano College