LOCK HAVEN, Pa. – Junior women's track & field/cross country runner Neely Spence was named the 2010-11 Pete Nevins PSAC Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year on Thursday, capping off another historic season for the multi-talented national champion.

Spence, Shippensburg's 2010-11 Female Student-Athlete of the Year, boasts a 3.87 cumulative quality point average while majoring in human communications studies and seeking a minor in coaching. She achieved a perfect 4.0 grade-point average in the fall and spring semesters while winning a national championship in three different sports.

Spence is the fifth Shippensburg athlete to attain this honor since its inception in 1991. It is the second consecutive year that an SU athlete has been honored; Mary Dell was named the 2009-10 Pete Nevins PSAC Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Heather Chantiles (softball) was honored in 2006. In 1994, Shippensburg swept the awards as Cindy Kepler (women's swimming) and Steve Economopolous (men's soccer, baseball) were recognized.

Spence is the only PSAC student-athlete in 2010-11 to receive Top 10 awards in all three seasons (fall, winter and spring). After winning the 2010 Division II cross country national championship, Spence was selected as the Division II Cross Country Scholar-Athlete of the Year by the USTFCCCA.

Two weeks ago, Spence was named to the 2010-11 Capital One Academic All-America Second Team for the college division of cross country and track & field – a squad that includes the brightest athletes in the nation from Division II, Division III and junior colleges. She will head into her senior year as a four-time PSAC Top 10 award winner, three-time USTFCCCA All-Academic team member and a two-time CoSIDA Academic All-American.

Spence's running prowess speaks for itself. Her 2010-11 season concluded recently in Oregon at the United States Track & Field Championships. As the only collegiate runner in a field with 14 professional athletes, Spence improved her career 5K PR by six seconds with a seventh-place finish of 15:27.72. Her previous PR is the Division II record of 15:33.83 set during the regular season at the Mt. Sac Relays.

In 2010-11, Spence won a cross country national championship, an indoor track national championship with the DMR, an outdoor track national championship in the 5K, seven conference championships (including cross country), broke three conference records, set a new Division II record and was crowned the regional athlete of the year in all three of her sports.

Additionally, Spence was named the PSAC Cross Country, Indoor Track and Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year. She has finished nine seasons of collegiate competition thus far and has been named the PSAC Athlete of the Year after all of them. Shippensburg also won conference championships in all three sports for the second consecutive year.

Spence is one of just a record 131 Shippensburg University scholar-athletes. A PSAC Scholar Athlete has maintained a 3.25 cumulative grade point average while competing in an intercollegiate varsity sport.

The PSAC Scholar-Athletes of the Year are chosen by the league's sports information directors and were renamed in 2007 to honor legendary East Stroudsburg SID Pete Nevins – who served his institution from 1969-2002. Nevins was an award-winning sports information pioneer who was elected into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame in 1987.