TUCSON, Ariz. – With the Spring 2020 semester officially over at Arizona Athletics, key team and individual departmental awards have been announced. These recognitions include important community service awards from Arizona's #CatsGiveBack program. The athletics department is also recognizing its programs with the highest team GPA's for 2018-19 following the cancellation of the annual CATSYS event, which recognizes and celebrates Wildcat student-athletes.

Senior Casey Ponton from Men's Diving earned the Male Community Service Award for accumulating the most community service hours of any male student-athlete. Ponton served as the Community Service lead on Arizona's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee while being heavily involved in the department's Drop-In Community Service program, which pairs student-athletes and staff for volunteer opportunities with non-profits visiting McKale Center. He was part of Arizona Swimming and Diving's work with Team IMPACT and its team representative Colton.
 

?? @cpont20 ??

Congratulations to Casey Ponton, the @AZATHLETICS Male Community Service Award Winner!

Thanks for being a leader in our community, Casey, and thanks to @Dave_Heeke for stopping by our Zoom meeting to present the award!#520Day || #BearDown pic.twitter.com/jp5q2o2hLL

— Arizona Swim & Dive (@ArizonaSwimDive) May 20, 2020

Jenny Leung, a senior from Arizona Gymnastics, received the Female Community Service Award, earning nearly 50 hours of community service this year to bring her career total to an impressive 125 hours. Jenny has been active with a variety of community service programming in Southern Arizona, including the Community Food Bank, Ben's Bells, Girl Scouts of Southern Arizona, the Boys & Girls Club and the Classroom Cats Pen Pal program. She also was featured in Arizona Athletics' celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
 

?? Congratulations to Jenny Leung on earning this year's @AZATHLETICS Female Community Service Award! ??

Thank you for your dedication to this program and the community. Your leadership sets an example for us all. #520Day | #BearDown pic.twitter.com/yCUjNpBxv2

— Arizona GymCats (@ArizonaGymCats) May 21, 2020

For the fourth consecutive year, Arizona Women's Basketball took home the Team Community Service Award as the program averaged 34.27 hours of service in the community per student-athlete. Coach Barnes and the Wildcats were involved in a plethora of community service initiatives, including Future Cat clinics, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Las Abuelitas After School Program, Boys & Girls Club and visits to see pediatric patients at Diamond Children's Medical Center.



Arizona's top team GPA's for 2018-19 were Men's Cross Country and Beach Volleyball with marks of 3.547 and 3.728 respectively.