ROLLA, Mo. – Two Missouri S&T student-athletes – Skyler Ruszkowski (League City, TX/Clear Falls) and Dalton Erger (Imperial, MO/Seckman) -- are among 14 named by the Great Lakes Valley Conference today as winners of the conference's Scholar-Athlete of the Year awards for the 2018-19 winter and spring seasons.

Ruszkowski was the selection in women's track & field, where she won a conference championship and qualified for both the NCAA Division II championship meets during the 2019 season, while Erger was the baseball recipient following a 2019 campaign when he was a first-team All-GLVC selection.

A mechanical engineering major at Missouri S&T, Ruszkowski completed her career by finishing 13^th in the high jump at the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships.  She earned All-America honors during the indoor championships earlier this year when she took seventh in the event.

During the 2018-19 season, Ruszkowski established a new school record in the indoor high jump when she cleared 5-10¾ in a meet at Pittsburg State; that clearance was the best ever by any Miner women's competitor either indoors or outdoors. Earlier this month, she finished second in the high jump at the Great Lakes Valley Conference Championships with her season-best mark of 5-7¾.

She would finish third in that event at the GLVC Indoor Championships a day after winning the conference's pentathlon championship and was named as the meet's "Field Athlete of the Year," the first time a member of the women's program has ever been selected for that award.

Ruszkowski was a two-time All-America performer in the high jump, having earned that honor following her junior season at the NCAA outdoor meet with a 12^th place finish.  A five-time national meet participant, she has also been an all-region selection by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association in all four years in an S&T uniform.

In addition to her five trips to the national meet, Ruszkowski has earned one GLVC title and five additional top-three finishes in the high jump at the GLVC Championships during her S&T career.

She was named to the Google Cloud Academic All-District team for the second time in May; the Academic All-America team for track & field will be announced next week.  Ruszkowski is the fifth woman from Missouri S&T to earn a GLVC Scholar-Athlete award and the second from the women's track & field program to do so, joining 2006 winner Becca Kueny.

Erger, a biological sciences major at S&T, was also named to the Google Cloud Academic All-District team this season and finished the 2019 campaign with a 7-5 record and 74 strikeouts in 88 1/3 innings.  He has won his last four starts of the GLVC regular season, including a shutout win over Truman State and picked up five of his seven wins in GLVC play this year along with a win over nationally-ranked St. Cloud State early this season.

He finished the season with the fifth-best earned run average in the GLVC at 3.06 and his 88 1/3 innings of work on the mound ranked second in the conference.  Opposing hitters batted just .237 against him this season as the Miners gained a share of the GLVC regular season championship.

In his career, Erger recorded a 14-10 record with a 3.67 earned run average in 201 innings on the mound; he spent most of his first two seasons at S&T pitching out of the bullpen as he made 26 starts among his 64 career appearances.  He ranks third on S&T's all-time list with 181 strikeouts and has the fifth-best career earned run average, while also ranking eighth on that list for wins and saves (five). 

During his S&T career, Erger also won GLVC "Pitcher of the Week" honors on two occasions.  He is the ninth male student-athlete from S&T to receive this award and first ever from the Miner baseball team.

The winners were selected by the conference's faculty athletics representatives based on their athletic accomplishments – both team and individual – as well as their academic performance in the classroom in the season in which the award is based.  Nominees must have a cumulative grade point average of 3.30 or better; freshman and first-year transfers are not eligible.   The 2018-19 season marks the first since S&T became a member of the GLVC in 2005 that three Miner student-athletes earned the honor in the same academic year, as Bo Brooks was the football selection in the fall.