St. John’s midfielder Matt Groenwald was one of six athletes nationally and two from NCAA Division-I institutions to receive the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Robbins Scholar-Athlete award in Providence Sunday.

After the team’s game at Providence, Groenwald attended the awards ceremony where he and five other athletes representing ECAC schools in Divisions-I, II and III were awarded for “extraordinary achievements in academics, athletics and community service.”

Groenwald and Pennsylvania’s Katy Cross were the respective Division-I male and female winners of the prestigious student-athlete award.

James Newman of Assumption College and Shannon Seidel from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell were Division-II recipients, and Nick Bayley from Colby College and Erika Eisenhut from Union College represented Division-III institutions. Groenwald’s qualifications were nothing short of outstanding for the award, as he has completed his bachelor’s degree work with a 3.83 grade-point average in biology.

Groenwald has followed up a 2004 season in which he finished among the final 15 in voting for the Hermann Trophy, with four goals, nine points and 20 shots in the team’s first eight games of 2005.