FRISCO, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi track & field team had four of its members earn recognition for their academic and athletic achievements on Wednesday afternoon, as it was announced by the league office that sophomore
Alex Del Popolo, freshman
Philip Jensen e Castro, freshman
Alicia Finnis and senior
Emily Malouf were all named to the Southland Conference All-Academic Teams for the 2025 season.
"This is what it's all about for student-athletes," head coach
Bryan Jackson said. "These four embody it, and I couldn't be prouder of how they excelled in both this year!"
Del Popolo, a native of Sydney, Australia, competed in the javelin throw in his debut season with the Islanders, making it all the way up to second in program history with a personal-best mark of 65.36m. He earned the bronze medal in the event at the Southland Conference Outdoor Championships, and he would culminate his season by becoming one of five members of the team to earn a berth at the NCAA West Region First Round, where he finished in 30
th place overall. Del Popolo finished the year with a 3.75 cumulative GPA in his Psychology degree.
Jensen e Castro, from Hamburg, Germany, ran primarily mid-distance events during the 2025 campaign, setting school records in the outdoor 800m and the 4x800m relay while also rising to fourth all-time in the indoor 800m. He was also the only member of the men's roster to win a gold medal at the SLC Outdoor Championships this year, doing so in the 800m in a thrilling race in which he surpassed three other competitors in the final straightaway and took home the victory by just .07 seconds. Jensen e Castro holds a 3.52 cumulative GPA in his Kinesiology degree and finished the Spring semester with a mark of 3.59.
Finnis, out of Salisbury, England, was one of the team's most consistent competitors all season long, making her way into the school record books in five different individual distance events – the mile (3
rd), indoor 3,000m (2
nd), indoor 5,000m (4
th), outdoor 5,000m (4
th) and the outdoor 10,000m (4
th) – in addition to helping set the program's new top mark in the distance medley relay. She also earned medals at both the SLC Indoor and Outdoor Championships, taking home the gold in the 5,000m at the former and a pair of bronzes in the 5,000m and the 10,000m at the latter. Off the track, Finnis recorded a perfect 4.00 cumulative GPA in her Civil Engineering degree.
Malouf, a Salt Lake City, Utah product, excelled in the throws group in her first and only season on the Island, setting the new program record in the indoor women's shot put while making her way up to second in program history in the outdoor shot put, third in the discus throw, fourth in the weight throw and seventh in the hammer throw. She also won the gold medal in the shot put at the SLC Indoor Championships, reaching a mark of 15.11m to catapult herself into the top spot in her last throw of the event. In the classroom, Malouf posted a 3.83 cumulative GPA while working toward her master's degree in Health Care Administration.
Click here to view the full 2024-25 Southland Conference Track & Field All-Academic Teams.
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