Three Orange Earn ACC Postgraduate Scholarship Awards
2/23/2022 2:01:00 PM | Women's Soccer, Field Hockey, Volleyball, General
Syracuse student-athletes Meghan Root (women's soccer) and Polina Shemanova (volleyball) are two of 54 Atlantic Coast Conference student-athletes to earn the 2022 Weaver-James-Corrigan-Swofford Postgraduate Scholarship Awards, while Claire Cooke (field hockey) is one of three student-athletes to receive the Jim & Pat Thacker Scholarship.
The Weaver-James-Corrigan-Swofford and Jim and Pat Thacker postgraduate scholarships are awarded to selected student-athletes who intend to pursue a graduate degree following completion of their undergraduate requirements. The Thacker Scholarship is awarded to student-athlete that will be pursuing a graduate degree at an ACC institution. Each recipient will receive $6,000 toward his or her graduate education. Those honored have performed with distinction in both the classroom and their respective sport, while demonstrating exemplary conduct in the community.
Root, a captain of the 2021 Syracuse women's soccer team, is a public relations major in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. She started in 52 of the 59 career games she played in at SU and recorded nine goals and three assists. She was a 2021 CoSIDA Academic All-District honoree and earned All-ACC Academic Team recognition in 2020. At Syracuse, she was a member of the Syracuse Athletic Director's Honor Roll every semester and was an annual honoree on the ACC Academic Honor Roll. She completed internships with the Special Olympics and the Syracuse University Athletic Communications Department.
Shemanova is a three-time AVCA All-Region selection and earned 2018 AVCA Honorable Mention All-America honors. The two-time Syracuse captain is a two-time All-ACC First Team selection and earned All-ACC Second Team accolades in 2021. She is a three-time All-ACC Academic Team selection and earned CoSIDA Academic All-District honors in 2020 and 2021. Shemanova is sixth in career kills at Syracuse (1,432) and owns the record for kills per set (4.3). She set the Orange freshman record and ranked ninth on the single-season kills record list with 447 as a freshman. The following year she surpassed her mark with 485 kills, which is fourth on the SU single-season record list. A member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), Shemanova is a dual major in communication & rhetorical studies in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and linguistic studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Cooke is a four-time National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) National Academic Squad honoree and was named an NFHCA Division I Scholar of Distinction. She was a four-year starter for the Orange field hockey team that played in two NCAA Tournaments, including the 2021 Elite Eight. Cooke scored nine goals and had 10 assists during her Orange career. She earned All-ACC Academic Team honors and was on the ACC Academic Honor Roll throughout her career. Off the field, she served as the social media chair of the SAAC at Syracuse and was the field hockey program's Team IMPACT leader since the team's addition of Angelina Facciolo in November 2020. Team IMPACT is a Boston-based non-profit organization that focuses on improving the quality of live for children facing serious chronic illnesses through the power of team.
This year's class of postgraduate scholarship recipients will be highlighted in a one-hour show on ACC Network that will air in May.
