Soccer’s Thomas one of 12 Big South student-athletes named to conference’s prestigious Christenberry Award for Academic Excellence

By CSU Media | May 28, 2025

The Big South Conference announced that a league record-tying 12 student-athletes have been awarded the Conference’s prestigious George A. Christenberry Award for Academic Excellence. The award is given to a graduating male and female student-athlete who attain the highest GPA during their undergraduate collegiate careers. It is the 13th consecutive year at least six student-athletes have been honored and matches the record number of recipients first achieved in 2019-20. Below are this year’s recipients:

Radford softball player Cassi Barbato (4.00 in Exercise, Sport and Health Education)
Gardner-Webb men’s swimmer Theodore Drescher (4.00 in Graphic Design)
Longwood women’s lacrosse player Elena Firestone (4.00 in Computer Science)
USC Upstate volleyball player Julia Gladhill (4.00 in Early Childhood Education)
Presbyterian women’s soccer player Kelly Hall (4.00 in Business Administration)
USC Upstate volleyball player Ali Jansen (4.00 in Middle Level Education)
USC Upstate men’s soccer player Cooper Jennings (4.00 in Management)
Gardner-Webb women’s lacrosse player Reese Jones (4.00 in Biology/Biomedical Science)
Radford women’s soccer player Marley Krach (4.00 in Biology)
Winthrop women’s soccer player Lily Meisten (4.00 in Biology)
Charleston Southern women’s soccer player Sydney Thomas (4.00 in Management)
Longwood women’s cross country/track & field runner Lauren Vick (4.00 in Communication Sciences & Disorders)

Big South member institutions nominate one male and one female student-athlete for the annual Christenberry Award, or multiple student-athletes who tie for the highest GPA on their respective campus. The honor is named for George A. Christenberry, the former president of Augusta College (now Augusta University) and one of the founders of the Big South Conference. A member of the Big South Hall of Fame, Christenberry served as the league’s first president from 1983-86.

Thomas (Henderson, Nev.) graduated with a perfect 4.0 GPA from Charleston Southern, spending two years with the Buccaneers after transferring from Iowa State. In her two years with the Bucs, she started 28 games as a defender and played more than 2,300 minutes — including 20 matches where she played the full 90 minutes. Thomas scored a pair of goals and tallied two assists for six career points as a Buccaneer. During the 2023 season, she registered the winning goal in a 1-0 victory at Longwood.

Below are the 2024-25 CSU Christenberry Award candidates, as nominated by CSU:

Charleston Southern

Sydney Thomas (soccer), Aidan McAskie (nominee – baseball)