INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.-- Drury University senior swimmer Andrea Bazzoli was named the Great Lakes Valley Conference Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award winner as the league's male athlete of the year, the conference office announced Thursday.
 
The award is bestowed annually by the GLVC to one male and one female student-athlete that display academic excellence, athletic ability and achievement, character, and leadership. It is named in honor of former GLVC Commissioner, as well as, coach and director of athletics at Saint Joseph's College.
 
The women's award went to Indianapolis women's golfer Annika Haynes.
 
Bazzoli will be recognized Tuesday, May 22, at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car GLVC Awards Banquet at the Drury Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri.
 
In the pool, Bazzoli holds two meet records from this year's GLVC Championship, including his 53.65 in the 100 Breaststroke and as part of the 200 Medley Relay (1:28.14) team. He also broke a school record in the 100 Breast (53.58) as a sophomore, and recorded the Drury Breech Pool record in the 200 Free Relay (1:20.27) team his first season. During his freshman year in 2015-16, Bazzoli placed second as part of the 200 Medley Relay team at the GLVC Championships, helping the Panthers to their third league title in a row, and was fifth at the NCAA-II national meet in the 200 Individual Medley en route to a team sixth-place finish. The following year, he helped the squad win the conference meet again with a national runner-up finish at the national event. Also during his sophomore campaign, his 200 Medley Relay team won the GLVC title, while he was second in the 100 Breast, third in both the 200 Breast and 400 IM, and ninth in the 200 IM. At the national meet that year, he was on the sixth-place 400 MR and finished seventh in the 100 Breast (53.99).
 
This season, the Peschiera Del Garda, Italy, native repeated as GLVC champion on the record-setting 200 MR team, won the 100 Breast in record time and finished first in the 200 Breast on the way to a second-place finish at the league meet. At the NCAA meet, he became a National Champion in the 100 Breast, leading to Drury's sixth-place team finish. 
 
Bazzoli also excelled in the classroom, having graduated just this past weekend after maintaining a perfect 4.0 grade point average as a double major in Psychology and Sociology. He was named the NCAA Elite 90 Award Winner in March, presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative GPA participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA championships. He is a three-time GLVC All-Academic award winner, bestowed upon student-athletes who meet a cumulative GPA of 3.30 over two semesters of an academic year, and a two-time GLVC Brother James Gaffney Distinguished Scholar, presented to student-athletes who achieve a 4.0 GPA during the year. Moreover, he has been named to the Drury Dean's List every semester and is a three-time College Swimming Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) Scholar All-American, given to those with a 3.5 GPA who also swam at the national championships. In addition, Bazzoli garnered the Dr. Edsel Matthews Award that is given to the most outstanding male and female senior student-athletes on campus, and he was named the Behavioral Sciences Student of the Year.
 
The senior is also a member of multiple honor societies on campus, including Mortar Board as the Membership Chairman, Psi Chi (the international honor society in psychology) as the President Pro Tempore, and Phi Kappa Phi (oldest and most selective national all-discipline honor society). Furthermore, he has been a student teacher and teacher's assistant for multiple courses, is a member of the Dean's Advisory Council as a representative for the Department of Behavioral Sciences, and a member of the Behavioral Sciences Club, while also an Orientation Leader. In the community, Bazzoli has presented to the Boys and Girls Club of Springfield and the Midtown Carnegie Branch Library on "My Country of Birth" for children, and he also was twice part of the DU Orientation Service Plunge.
 
Bazzoli is the second Drury swimmer and is the fourth DU men's student-athlete to win the league's highest honor. Cross country runner Jaime Villa Zapatero was the school's first to be honored in 2010-11, while baseball player Nick Thimesch earned the 2013-14 award, and fellow swimmer Sean Feher won in 2014-15.
 
Full GLVC news release
 
 

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