SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Summit League officials named their 2021-22 Male and Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award honorees on Thursday. This year's recipients were South Dakota’s Jessie Sullivan, who earned the male honor for the second consecutive year, and North Dakota State's Amanda Anderson. The track and field athletes were recognized for their outstanding academic achievements, athletic achievements, attitude, and leadership throughout the 2021-22 academic year.

Sullivan is the first male to earn the award in back-to-back years since IUPUI's Perez Agaba achieved that feat in 2010-11 and 2011-12 and the fifth all-time to earn the award twice in a career. Anderson becomes the fifth female from NDSU to claim the honor and the fourth from the sport of track and field. The Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award is the most prestigious accolade The Summit League bestows each year and is determined by a vote of the league's faculty athletic representatives.

JESSIE SULLIVAN | SOUTH DAKOTA
Sullivan captured four more All-Summit League honors at the 2022 Summit League Indoor and Outdoor Championships to bring his career total to six. He took second in the weight throw and third in the shot put at the indoor event before capturing his second consecutive discus title at the outdoor event and adding a second-place finish in the hammer throw. Sullivan qualified for the NCAA West Regional in both outdoor events for the second consecutive season.

In the classroom, the four-time All-Summit League Academic Team honoree graduated with a 4.0 GPA in chemistry with minors in mathematics and interdisciplinary sciences. He has been named to the Summit League Commissioner’s List and honor roll each year he has been eligible and earned USTFCCCA All-Academic honors on four different occasions. Earlier this summer, Sullivan was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-American First Team and received an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.

The Albion, Neb., native has been accepted into the medical school at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in his home state where he will begin his studies this fall. While in Vermillion, Sullivan participated in a pair of  competitive research experiences: the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and the Summer Program for Undergraduate Research in Addiction (SPURA) and also served as the president of the USD Mortar Board Chapter, which is a national honor society.

Sullivan, who is the league’s first male track and field athlete to earn the award twice, helped organize a trio of blood drives with the American Red Cross and also served with an organization called Alternative Week of Off-Campus Learning (AWOL) where he cooked meals for families with children in the hospital, packaged groceries for students and senior citizens, cleaned homeless shelters and organized medical supplies for clinics in foreign countries.

Also nominated for Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year: Max Abmas, Oral Roberts // Cooper Clark, Kansas City // Ackeen Colley, Western Illinois // Matthew Dentlinger, South Dakota State // Liam Johnson, Denver // Luke Labatte, North Dakota // Graham Laubscher, St. Thomas // Trevor Otterdahl, North Dakota State // Stevie Siy, Omaha

AMANDA ANDERSON | NORTH DAKOTA STATE
Anderson was named the 2022 Summit League Outdoor Championship Most Outstanding Performer after winning the discus and shot put titles. The discus title was the third of her outdoor career (2019 and 2021), while the shot put title backed up her first-place finish in the same event at the 2022 Summit League Indoor Championship.

Anderson, who is NDSU's school record holder in the discus, qualified for the 2022 NCAA West Regional in both that event and the shot put, marking the second consecutive season she achieved that feat. 

In the classroom, NDSU’s Female Athlete of the Year carried a 4.0 cumulative GPA throughout her academic career in Fargo. She finished with a bachelor's degree in health education and physcial education and a master's degree in leadership in physical education and sport, while earning the SHAPE America Health Education Major of the Year for NDSU.

The St. Francis, Minn., native was named to the 2021-22 CoSIDA Academic All-American Division I First Team and also earned USTFCCA All-Academic honors.

A nominee for NCAA Female Athlete of the Year, Anderson spent two years on NDSU's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and also worked as substitute teacher in the Fargo Public School District, while logging more than 100 volunteer hours helping out at blood drives and river clean ups and coaching local youth. Anderson will begin her professional career as a healthy and physical education teacher at her high school alma mater.

Also nominated for Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year:  Anna Astrup, St. Thomas // Natalie Beckman, Denver // Kacie Borowicz, North Dakota // Abby Carlin, Western Illinois // Gabrielle Gibson, Oral Roberts // Mia Hoveland, Kansas City // Chloe Lamb, South Dakota // Sadie Limback, Omaha // Cailee Peterson, South Dakota State 

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