Four NCAC Student-Athletes Earn CSC Academic All-America® Honors

Four North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) men's track & field/cross country student-athletes were named to the 2025-26 College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-America® Teams, announced Tuesday, July 14. Basheer Alramahi (Westlake, OH/Westlake) and Tyler Gast (Olmsted Township, OH/Olmsted Falls) of John Carroll earned First Team honors, while Cameron Elliott (Springfield, OH/Springfield) of Wittenberg and Namu Makatiani (Nairobi, Kenya/George School (PA)) of Oberlin were named to the Second Team.
 
Alramahi, a senior biology major, carried a perfect 4.00 GPA and earned First Team recognition for the third consecutive year. He became the first student-athlete in NCAA Division III track & field history to win the NCAA Elite Scholar-Athlete Award in back-to-back years after picking up the honor at this year's NCAA Indoor Championships. At the NCAC Indoor Championships, he placed third in the 400- (47.16) and fourth in the 200- (21.83) meter dashes; he then placed fourth in the 800 at the NCAA Indoor Championships (1:51.19) and helped John Carroll's 4x400 relay to a seventh-place finish (3:15.25), earning First-Team All-America honors in both. Outdoors, Alramahi placed seventh in the 400-meter final (47.09) and anchored John Carroll's 4x400 relay to a sixth-place finish (3:10.63) at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, adding two more All-America honors and USTFCCCA All-Region recognition in both events each season.
 
Gast, a graduate student, pursued an MBA in business administration after completing his undergraduate degree in data science, posting a 3.66 undergraduate and 3.97 graduate GPA to earn First Team honors. At the NCAC Indoor Championships, he placed fifth in the 400-meter dash (47.57); he then earned First-Team All-America honors in the 400 at the NCAA Indoor Championships (fifth, 47.82) and helped John Carroll's 4x400 relay to a seventh-place finish (3:15.25). Outdoors, he placed second in the 400- (47.10) and third in the 200- (21.53) meter dashes at the NCAC Outdoor Championships, then placed fifth in the 400 (46.86) and ran on John Carroll's sixth-place 4x400 relay (3:10.63) at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, earning two more All-America honors and USTFCCCA All-Region recognition in both events each season.
 
Elliott, a graduate student in sport administration, carried a 3.69 GPA and earned Second Team honors. He was named the NCAC's Indoor Sprinter/Hurdler Athlete of the Year and the USTFCCCA Great Lakes Region Indoor Track Athlete of the Year, just the second Wittenberg student-athlete to earn the regional honor, after winning the 400-meter dash at the NCAC Indoor Championships in a school-record 47.07 and running a leg on the Tigers' conference-champion 4x400 relay. Elliott placed third in the 400 at the NCAA Indoor Championships (47.52) for First-Team All-America honors, then helped Wittenberg's 4x400 relay to an eighth-place, All-America finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships (3:11.34), earning USTFCCCA All-Region recognition in the 400 and 4x400 relay in both seasons.
 
Makatiani, a senior biology major, carried a 3.81 GPA and earned Second Team honors. He broke a 24-year-old NCAC indoor triple jump record with a leap of 14.91 meters at the NCAC Indoor Championships, then placed eighth in the triple jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships (14.82m) for First-Team All-America honors. Outdoors, he placed second in the triple jump (14.47m) at the NCAC Outdoor Championships and earned USTFCCCA All-Region recognition in the triple jump and hurdles in both the indoor (60-meter) and outdoor (110-meter) seasons.
 
The CSC Academic All-America® Division III First Team posted a 3.90 average undergraduate GPA, and 15 honorees across the three Division III teams hold a perfect 4.0 GPA.

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