Valparaiso University men’s golf junior Caleb VanArragon (Blaine, Minn. / Blaine) received a high honor on Thursday as he was named to the 2021-2022 CoSIDA Academic All-District At-Large First Team for District 5 for a second consecutive season.

Last year, VanArragon became the second Valpo golfer to earn that honor and first since Kyle Henning in 2013-2014. This year, he was one of 12 men’s student-athletes named to the team from District 5, which includes the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. He was one of four men’s golfers from those states to garner the accolade and earned a place on the team while competing against student-athletes from the following men’s sports: golf, gymnastics, fencing, ice hockey, lacrosse, rifle, skiing, swimming, tennis, volleyball, water polo and wrestling.

Following the 2021-22 campaign, VanArragon also obtained MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year status and won the MVC Elite 17 Award, presented to the student-athlete with the highest GPA among top finishers at the league championship, earning each of those accolades for a second straight season.

A three-time All-MVC performer, VanArragon owns a perfect 4.0 cumulative grade point average as a biology and statistics double major. He also holds the three best single-season scoring averages in program history including a program-record 71.35 this season while achieving par or better in 20 of his 34 rounds.

VanArragon’s season scoring average from this year ranked fifth in the MVC record book (since 2003). He owns a career scoring average of 72.04 that sits atop the Valpo program record book. The junior boasted nine top-5 finishes in his 13 tournaments this season and earned individual medalist honors in a 41-player field at the Dove Mountain Intercollegiate (Feb. 28 – March 1). He also tied for first at the Spirit Hollow Fall Shootout and had three runner-up finishes, all in fields of more than 65 golfers.

The six-time MVC Golfer of the Week this season has won 11 MVC Golfer of the Week awards in his career, becoming just the fifth player in conference history to win 11 career MVC weekly golf honors.

Away from the course, the dean’s list honoree has served as a biology lab aide, helping his biology professor make zoom recordings of his class for students and completing general lab work. He has also served as a stats teaching assistant and works with two biology professors on biology research projects. VanArragon is also a math/stats tutor, a Valpo LuMin volunteer and ran over 20 junior golf tournaments throughout the state of Minnesota for the Minnesota Junior PGA in summers 2020 and 2021.

NCAA DIVISION I – DISTRICT 5 (IL, IN, MI, OH)

FIRST TEAM

Sport Name School Yr. GPA Major

Wrestling Myles Amine University of Michigan Gr. 3.40/3.76 Business Administration (UG) / Sport Management (G)

Ice Hockey Matty Beniers University of Michigan So. 3.87 Sports Management

Swimming Ben Bramley Purdue University Sr. 3.86 Finance

Ice Hockey Nathan Burke Bowling Green State University Sr. 4.00 Master of Business Administration

Golf Adrien Dumont de Chassart University of Illinois Sr. 3.76 Management: Entrepreneurship & Recreation

Golf Sam Jean University of Cincinnati Sr. 4.00 Mechanical Engineering

Gymnastics Paul Juda University of Michigan Jr. 3.58 Psychology

Wrestling Mason Kauffman Northern Illinois University Sr. 4.00 Biological Sciences

Wrestling Max Lyon Purdue University Sr. 3.78 Operations & Supply Chain Management

Tennis Laurentiu Mandocescu Youngstown State University Jr. 3.88 Business

Golf Caleb VanArragon Valparaiso University Jr. 4.00 Biology & Statistics