Kautzer Named CoSIDA At-Large Academic All-American of the Year
HOUGHTON, Mich. – Michigan Tech Nordic skier Amanda Kautzer has been named the CoSIDA Academic All-America® At-Large Team Member of the Year to become a two-time Academic All-American. Kautzer is a senior from Plymouth, Minnesota, and held a 4.0 grade-point average in biomedical engineering.
Kautzer is the second Michigan Tech student-athlete to receive the award after JT Luginiski from the men's basketball team earned the honor in 2002-03.
Kautzer was a three-time qualifier at the NCAA Skiing Championships. She received the NCAA's Elite 90 award in 2020, having the best GPA of anyone at the Championships. She has been on the USCSCA All-Academic Team three times. Kautzer was a Central Regional Champion in 2019 in the classic and placed 17th at the 2019 NCAA Championship in the classic. She is a three-time All-CCSA selection and three-time All-Central Region finisher.
Kautzer has also performed on the world stage at the 2020 U23 World Ski Championships in Germany and competed at the Junior World Championships three times from 2015-17 as a biathlete.
As a cross country runner for the Huskies, Kautzer raced at the 2019 NCAA Championships and received USTFCCCA All-Academic honors. She was a three-time GLIAC All-Academic Excellence team member and received the team's 2018 Scholastic Achievement Award. She competed in five races in 2019, leading the Huskies at the Blugold Invite and placing one spot outside of an All-GLIAC finish at the conference championship. Kautzer was a captain on both teams and is only the third Michigan Tech female student-athlete to compete at the NCAA Championships in both cross country and Nordic skiing.
Kautzer recently received the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship and the GLIAC Pat Riepma Postgraduate Scholarship.
The Academic All-America® program is being financially supported by the NCAA Division II national governance structure to assist CoSIDA with handling the awards fulfillment aspects for the 2019-20 Division II Academic All-America® teams program.
The at-large program for the CoSIDA Academic All-America® program includes the sports of fencing, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, rifle, skiing, swimming and diving, tennis, water polo for both men and women; bowling, crew and field hockey for women; and volleyball and wrestling for men.
Sixteen men and 16 women are repeat performers on this year's at-large teams. Thirty-four (20 women, 14 men) student-athletes on the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division II At-Large Teams have a 4.00 GPA. The CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division II Women's At-Large First Team had an overall 3.94 GPA, while the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division II Men's At-Large First Team had an overall 3.93 GPA.