IRVING, Texas – Charlotte’s Riley Felts and Rice’s Mckyla Van der Westhuizen have both earned Academic All-America honors from the College Sports Communicators, CSC announced on Tuesday, July 9. Felts has been selected to the First Team, while Van der Westhuizen was picked to the Second Team.
 
Felts was the runner-up in the pole vault at the both the 2024 NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field Championships. She is a seven-time conference champion and was named the 2024 Southeast Region Women’s Field Athlete of the Year. The senior from Matthews, N.C. has a 3.98 cumulative GPA, majoring in civil engineering. It was her second Academic All-America nod, after earning Third-Team honors in 2021.
 
Van der Westhuizen, a sophomore from Gauteng, South Africa, was the 2024 AAC champion in the javelin and placed third at the 2024 NCAA Outdoor Championships. She currently holds a 3.70 GPA, majoring in sports medicine and exercise physiology.