University of Maine Athletics

ORONO, Maine -- The University of Maine announced on Monday that Wilson Adams (Barrington, R.I.) of the track and field team and Liz Wood (Catlett, Va.) of the women’s basketball team are the recipients of the 2015 “M” Club Dean Smith Awards. The awards are presented annually to the top male and female student-athlete with outstanding academic and athletic achievement along with citizenship and community service. 

Wilson Adams is a bioengineering major with a minor in physics and plans to pursue PhD studies. He has been named to the Dean’s List six times and to the America East All-Academic Team three different times. Today, he was awarded a double gold medallion as a four time scholar-athlete. Adams has been a teaching assistant, student research assistant and laboratory coordinator in the College of Engineering. He received UMaine’s Center for Undergraduate Research Creative and Academic Achievement Fellowship and the National Science Foundations Seniors fellowship. Among some of his research he has worked in the development of specialized equipment for automated handling of larval zebrafish and on a project to design and produce biodegradable lobster shell golf balls. 

Adams, captain of the track and field team, has set multiple school records while at UMaine. He is a four-time America East champion in the weight throw and hammer, winning both events in 2012 and 2014. Adams has been named the UMaine and America East student-athlete of the week multiple times and has been selected to the America East All-Conference and IC4A All-Eastern teams. He broke 50 year old school records in both the weight throw with a throw of 64’ 6.5”and the hammer throw, winning the America East title with a throw of 191’9”. 

Liz Wood, co-captain of the women’s basketball team, is a junior in the Honors College majoring in biology with a pre-med concentration and a minor in chemistry. She is the co-president of UMaine’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. She was named the 2013 America East Women’s Basketball Student-Athlete of the Year and is a two-time selection to the America East Commissioner’s Honor Roll. She received the Second Year Academic Book Award in the school of Biology and Ecology in 2013 and is a two-time finalist for the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) All-State Good Works team for her significant impact in the community, in the classroom and on the court. Named to the 2013 America East All-Academic team, Wood has also volunteered numerous hours giving back to the UMaine community. Through her work with SAAC, Wood has organized several community service events including visits to local elementary schools, “Dodge for a Cause”, Toys-For-Tots events, hospital visits, food drives, free clinics and offered her time to officiate for Special Olympics basketball games. This past summer, she participated in an internship at Colorado State University working in a laboratory on a NASA funded project in cancer biology. 

Wood has been equally as impressive on the court as she recently became the 18th women’s basketball student-athlete in school history to record 1,000 points when she accomplished the feat on Sunday, Feb. 8 against Hartford. Wood was named the America East preseason Player of the Year as well as earning a spot on the preseason All-Conference list. A four-time America East Player of the Week and a six-time America East Rookie of the Week, Wood was named to the All-Defensive team in 2014 as well as earning a spot on the league’s All-Conference Second Team. Wood was also impressive in her rookie season, earning America East Co-Rookie of the year honors as she led all rookies in the league in both scoring and rebounding. Earlier this season, Wood tallied the first triple-double in Maine history and has racked up 13 double-double’s in her career at Maine. UMaine’s junior forward has tallied 20+ points on 12 different occasions while producing double-figure scoring efforts in 56 of her 83 games as a Black Bear.

The “M” Club Dean Smith Award was first presented as the “M” Club Scholarship Award in 1980. The award was renamed to honor Dean Smith in 1993. Dean Smith was a recipient of the Walter Byers Award presented by the NCAA. Smith combined the top grade-point average among senior electrical engineering majors with the NAC scoring title as the captain of the 1989-90 men’s basketball team. 

In addition, the University of Maine Athletic Department named its seventh annual “Team Maine” representing the top sophomore, junior or senior achieving the highest grade point average for the calendar year 2014. Representing “Team Maine” for 2014 are:

Name Garet Beal	Sport Men's Basketball	Major KPE - Teaching/Coaching
Jeff Ondish	Football	Elementary Education
Ryan Fahey	Men's Swimming	Microbiology
Scott Merrill	Men's Track and Field	Biology - Honors College
Dan Renouf	Men's Ice Hockey	Management
Devin Shore	Men's Ice Hockey	Finance
Jesse Orach	Men's Cross Country	Chemical Engineering - Honors College
Jake Osborne	Baseball	KPE - Exercise Science
Caroline Curtis	Cheering	KPE - M. Ed. (Grad)
Abigail Linn*	Women's Swimming	Sociology
Eve L'Abbe	Women's Soccer	KPE - Exercise Science
Joanie L'Abbe	Women's Soccer	KPE - Exercise Science
Sigrid Koizar	Women's Basketball	Biology
Rebecca Paradee	Field Hockey	KPE - Exercise Science / Administration
Sydney Veljacic	Field Hockey	Business Management
Stephanie Wood*	Softball	Biology - Honors College
Shannon O'Neil	Women's Cross Country /Track	Communication Sciences & Disorders
Abigail Wessels	Women's Cross Country /Track	Bioengineering - Honors College
Jessica Hall	Women's Ice Hockey	Elementary Education
Katelyn Massey#	Women's Ice Hockey	Psychology

* - Named to Team Maine for the second year in a row. 
# - Named to Team Maine for the third year in a row. 
The University of Maine is celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2015. In conjunction with this, the athletic department will celebrate 150 student-athletes achievements over the next year.