The Westminster College Lady Jays basketball team's cumulative 3.642 grade point average was the highest of any NCAA Division III women's basketball team in the country last school year. The Women's Basketball Coaches Association notified the team Thursday.
The GPA includes all student-athletes on a team's roster.
"Our team set a goal in August that we wanted to be number one in the nation, but it wasn't a goal that we just wrote down and hoped for," senior Leigh Ann Lutz (California High School) said in a school press release.
"We calculated the GPAs collectively to make sure we were around a 3.7 and then we all checked up on each other throughout the year to make sure we were staying on pace."
It's the first time Westminster has achieved the best overall and the Lady Jay's fourth appearance in the top 25, improving from 24th to 13th to fourth the past three years.
Westminster College president Dr. George B. Forsythe commended the team.
"These young women epitomize the student-athlete model at Westminster College," he said in the press release.
Westminster College was the lone St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference representative in the WBCA Academic Top 25 Poll.
"We continually talked about being our best, not only on the court but in the classroom as well," coach Tracey Braden said in the press release. "This team continues to fully embody the mission of being a NCAA Division III student-athlete."