Cal State San Bernardino junior cross country runner Shawna Alvarez of Twentynine Palms has been voted to the ESPN-The Magazine All-District 8 Academic Team for track and cross country. 
    It is the second straight year that Alvarez has earned first-team honors and it makes her eligible for ESPN-The Magazine Academic All-America honors that will be announced later this month. 
    Alvarez, a graduate of Twentynine Palms High School in 2006, where she was a two-time team captain and holder of the school record in the 800 meters, is maintaining a 3.95 grade point average as a nursing major. 
    Her GPA was the second highest among the 10 student-athletes named to the first team behind a 3.79 by Maddie Coffman of Willamette University in Oregon. She was one of two California Collegiate Athletic Association athletes on the first team. The other was Rosemary Feikert of Cal State Stanislaus. 
    The only other public university athlete on either the first or second teams was Heidi Dimmitt of Western Washington. 
    Kortney Watring of University of Redlands was a second-team all-District 8 selection with a 3.96 GPA as an English major. 
    Alvarez competed in all eight meets last fall for the Coyotes who finished eighth in the CCAA conference championship meet and 15th at the NCAA Division II West Regional meet. She posted best times of 20:48.6 for 5,000 meters and 25:32.9 for 6,000 meters in the fall of 2008. 
    She is a two-time recipient of the CCAA Academic All-Star Award given to student-athletes in the conference with grade averages at 3.5 or higher and she has been a member of the Athletic Department's Leader of the Pack honor roll each quarter at CSUSB. 
    Alvarez and her team earned U.S. Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association all-academic team honors for the ninth straight year in 2008-09. 
    She will be a senior in the fall. 
    The ESPN-The Magazine academic awards are sponsored by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).