Oct. 19, 2007

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ohio student-athletes Melissa Griffin and Craig Leon have each been named Mid-American Conference Scholar Athlete of the Week, as announced by the conference office Thursday evening.

Griffin, a senior majoring in hearing/speech and language sciences, captured the MAC Female Scholar Athlete of the Week award after leading the Bobcats to sweeps against Ball State and Toledo. In the victories, Griffin continued rewriting the Ohio record book. The Whitehall, Mich. native had 23 kills on the week, increasing her career total to 1,462, moving her into third place on the all-time career kills list at Ohio. She posted a match-high 13 kills (.591) and four blocks against Ball State and collected 10 kills on a .409 hitting percentage against Toledo.

For the week, Griffin averaged 3.8 kills and 1.0 blocks per game while hitting .500. Griffin, a 2006 All-MAC First Team selection, has played great all season, but against MAC opponents she has stepped her game up to another level. Against conference teams she is averaging 4.5 kills per game and hitting a conference-best .455.

Leon, a graduate student in the sport administration program, was named MAC Male Scholar Athlete of the Week after recording the second-best 8k men's time in Ohio cross country history. Leon finished with a time of 23:58.00 for a 38th place finish at Pre-Nationals in Terre Haute, Ind. Before Saturday's event, Leon had taken first twice to open the 2007 season and third place in the Bobcats' third and fourth meets of the season. Leon, a native of Van Wert, Ohio, graduated cum laude in integrated language arts in 2006.

The MAC Scholar Athlete of the Week honor is presented to a MAC male and female student-athlete who has a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or better and performs well during that week's competition. The winners are selected by a group of the conference's faculty athletic representatives.