Submitted By Chris Schmidbauer, Sports Information Director
Toledo, OH — On June 19, the Ohio Community College Athletic Conference (OCCAC) announced that the Owens Community College Athletics won the 2017-2018 OCCAC All-Sports Award. It is the fourth time in a row that Owens has won the award and it is also the sixth time i seven years that the college has claimed the award as well.
Owens athletic director, JD Ettore, said, “(We are) very honored that Owens won the OCCAC Sports Award for the fourth year in a row. I thank the coaches and our student-athletes for all of their hard work this year on the field of play.”
The award after points are tallied based on a team’s place of finish in each OCCAC-sponsored sports and then dividing that total by the number of sports at each school. A conference champions earns 10 points, second place earns nine, etc. Ties are divided (i.e. – a two-way tie for second place would result in both schools receiving 8.5 points; a three-way tie for second would give each team 8.0 points).
Owens had an average of 9.50 (28.5 points combined for all three sports), which is tied for the highest mark in the award’s history which began in 2008-09. According to the conference, Cincinnati State Technical & Community College’s four sports in ’09-10 garnered 38 points to match the 9.50 average. The Express have finished at least second place every year since the award’s inception ten years ago.
The Express had another terrific year in each of its three sports during the 2017-18 school year. The Express Volleyball program had an undefeated regular season at 40-0 and outright won the OCCAC title. The program would finish the highest it ever has at the Division II program, finishing second and 40-1 overall. Women’s basketball won its sixth consecutive OCCAC championship after finishing 13-1 in the conference. The team would go on to finish in the Top 10 of the NJCAA Division II National Championships in March. Finally, the men’s basketball team concluded their conference season at 14-2 in the OCCAC, which included winning 13 conference games in a row to close out the conference schedule. The team also upset then #1 ranked and undefeated Cuyahoga on January 31 of this past year.
Owens will start its title defense when the Express volleyball team kicks off its conference schedule on August 29 against Lorain. The Express will also have baseball and softball included once again when both programs return to the diamond in the spring of 2019.
2017-18 ALL-SPORTS AWARD STANDINGS
PLACE | SCHOOL | POINTS | SPORTS | AVERAGE |
1 | Owens Community College | 28.5 | 3 | 9.50 |
2 | Sinclair Community College | 42.5 | 5 | 8.50 |
3 | Cuyahoga Community College | 40 | 5 | 8.00 |
4 | Lakeland Community College | 36 | 5 | 7.20 |
5 | Edison State Community College | 33.5 | 5 | 6.70 |
6 | Columbus State Community College | 18.5 | 3 | 6.17 |
7 | Lorain County Community College | 16 | 3 | 5.33 |
8 | Clark State Community College | 13.5 | 4 | 3.38 |
9 | Hocking Technical College | 7.5 | 3 | 2.50 |