Ricker Presented Presidents Award

MARS HILL, N.C. - At halftime of the Mars Hill football game against Tusculum, Ansley Ricker was presented the 2015-16 South Atlantic Conference Presidents Award. The Presidents Award is the highest individual honor presented annually by the South Atlantic Conference.

Pictured (left to right): SAC Intern Dustin Petty, SAC Commissioner Patrick Britz, Ansley Ricker, Mars Hill President Dr. Dan Lunsford.

The SAC Presidents Award is voted on by the league's Faculty Athletic Representatives and to be eligible, student-athletes must exemplify excellence in athletics, academics and community service. Further, to be nominated for this prestigious award, the individual must have been honored as the Scholar-Athlete of the Year during the year in one of the league's 18 sponsored sports.

Ricker, a point guard on the women's basketball team, graduated from Mars Hill with a degree in Biology and carried a GPA of 4.0.  She has earned Dean's List honors all four years of her career at Mars Hill, earning SAC Commissioner's Honor Roll honors all four years as well.  Ricker has served as a College Marshall every year while she has been at Mars Hill, including serving as the Chief Marshall the past two years.  Ricker founded the Beta Beta Beta chapter at Mars Hill, the national biological honor society, and has been a member of the Alpha Chi National Honor Society since her sophomore year.  She was twice named the South Atlantic Conference Women's Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award in both her junior and senior years.

During her freshman season, she led the SAC in three-point field goal percentage and started over half of Mars Hill's games.  She became a full-time starter in her sophomore season where she averaged 12.4 points per game to rank second on her squad.  During her junior campaign, she earned second-team All-South Atlantic Conference honors as she finished second in the League with 18.1 points per outing.  She also ranked No. 2 in the League in three-point field goal percentage and led her team in assists per game.  An ACL injury sidelined her for the 2014-15 season.  This past season saw Ricker average 15.7 points per game to rank No. 3 in the League and rank No.4 in the South Atlantic Conference with a 39.3 percentage from 3-point range to earn first-team All-South Atlantic Conference honors.  She was a three-time team captain.

In the classroom, Ricker has participated in research with the Mars Hill faculty in sampling and monitoring water quality in streams in the Appalachian Mountains.  Her Quorum Sensing Review research paper won the Alpha Chi National Honors Society Gaston-Noelle Scholarship as she was tabbed CoSIDA Academic All-District this past season.  Ricker also won the Quillion College of Medicine Internship Award during the summer of 2015.

Ricker has also found time to volunteer in the community as she has volunteered with Beacon of Hope, My Sister's Place, Big Brothers Animal Rescue and local elementary and high schools in each of her four years at Mars Hill.  She is a volunteer for Mars Hill student support services as a tutor and supplemental teacher and has participated in mission work in Nyanga of Capetown, South Africa.