NEWTON, N.C. --- Tusculum College's Simon Holzapfel has been named the 2009 South Atlantic Conference Scholar Athlete for Men's Cross Country. The announcement came Saturday morning at the Food Lion SAC Championship at Southside Park in Newton, N.C.

Holzapfel, a junior from Nuremberg, Germany has been one of the top runners in the conference this season. He has won five individual titles this year, including Saturday's SAC Championship as he posted a school-record time of 25:53.96. He has won a school record 10 individual titles in his career and owns nine of the top ten 8K times in school history, including the top seven.

In 2008, he garnered All-NCAA Division II Southeast Region honors and finished runner-up at last year's South Atlantic Conference championship.

Holzapfel has a 4.00 cumulative grade point average majoring in Sport Management & Sport Science and was a 2008-09 Academic All-American®. He was the 2008-09 recipient of the Duffield Award, presented to the Tusculum student-athlete with highest GPA, and was named the Tusculum College Freshman Student-Athlete of the Year Academic Award in 2008 and has been named to numerous honor rolls.

Holzapfel serves as a senator for the Tusculum Student Government Association and a campus tutor. He is a member of the Tusculum President's Society, where he serves as student ambassador. He also serves as a resident assistant and is a member of a campus group that works on protecting the environment, recycling and energy saving. He also volunteers at a local nursing home with painting and other projects, and fundraising projects at a local elementary school.

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