Slippery Rock University placed women’s cross country runner and Butler high school graduate Jennifer Cichra and football safety Michael Henwood from Hermitage on the Fall Top 10 team when the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference announced its fall academic honorees Wednesday. Cichra, a senior distance runner from Renfrew, Pennsylvania, maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA after an impressive 165 credit hours while majoring in mechanical engineering with a minor in computing. She adds a second Fall Top 10 award to her growing list of academic honors that also includes a spot on the 2024-25 Academic All-America team and the 2024 NCAA Elite 90 award for owning the highest GPA of all athletes competing at the NCAA Cross Country Championships.
The two honorees for SRU marks the seventh straight PSAC Top 10 team where The Rock have at least two of the 10 student-athletes recognized by the conference. Slippery Rock now leads all schools in the PSAC with a total of 92 Top 10 honorees since the award’s inception in 1997. Shippensburg currently ranks second in the league with a total of 83 honorees.
In order to be eligible for the PSAC Top 10, a student-athlete must be at least a sophomore in athletic and academic standing, must own a cumulative GPA of 3.50 or above and must have significant athletic credentials.
Another Butler high grad, Mike Formica of IUP was also named to the Fall Top 10 list. Formica, who runs cross country at Indiana, is a Psychology major and carried a 3.51 GPA last fall.