Honor from College Sports Communicators

By Tim Glon
www.ONUSports.com

ONU Senior Grace Honigford (West Chester/Lakota East) has been named First Team Academic All-America for 2023-24 by the College Sports Communicators.

Honigford was named to the At-Large Team, which consists of student-athletes nationwide that compete in golf, lacrosse, field hockey, crew/rowing, ice hockey, rifle, gymnastics, beach volleyball or fencing.

She was also named Second Team Academic All-America by the CSC in 2022-23.

In her four seasons on the women's golf team, Honigford has rewritten the record books and now holds every record within the program.

A mechanical engineering major, she was named Ohio Northern's female winner of the prestigious Clyde Lamb Award, given annually to the top male and female student-athletes of each of the 10 Ohio Athletic Conference schools.

She also guided the Polar Bears to a pair of Ohio Athletic Conference Championships titles and NCAA Championships appearances.

Honigford is a three-time OAC Championships Medalist and is a four-time All-OAC honoree.

She won the OAC individual title as a freshman in 2021 and was Co-Medalist in 2022 and 2024. She was runner-up in 2023.

Honigford is also a three-time Academic All-OAC honoree.

This season, Honigford set the school's 18-, 36-, 54- and 72-hole school records with totals of 68, 143, 223 and 300, respectively.

She also had a school record 75.5 stroke average over a school record 27 rounds this season.

Her efforts also helped this season's Polar Bear squad set team records for 18, 36, 54 and 72 holes and a season-best average of 318.0 strokes per round.

To top things off, Honigford also recorded the program's first-ever hole in one this season.

The Polar Bears finished the 2023-24 season with a 72-35 overall record, won the OAC Championships title and finished 20th at the NCAA III Championships under 11th-year head coach Chad Bucci.