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As Longwood’s 2021 co-valedictorian, Carrie Reaver asserted herself as one of the highest-performing students in the university’s graduating class. As an Academic All-American, she joined the ranks of the top student-athletes in all of Division I athletics.

Now Reaver has put her name atop another elite crop of collegians by earning the Big South Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year award, announced recently by the conference office.

As the top vote-getter among the league’s 10 sport-specific Big South Female Scholar-Athletes of the Year in 2020-21, Reaver becomes the first Lancer to win the Big South’s overall scholar-athlete award and only the league’s third women’s soccer player since it was first awarded in 1995-96. She was one of two Lancers on this year’s ballot alongside Big South Women’s Lacrosse Scholar-Athlete of the Year Dana Joss, who was also named an All-American and Longwood University valedictorian in 2020.

A double major in biology and Spanish with dual minors in chemistry and neurostudies, Reaver was a three-time All-Big South defender and graduated from Longwood this past May with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. Also a two-time Big South Women’s Soccer Scholar-Athlete of the Year and winner of the Big South Christenberry Award for Academic Excellence, Reaver became the fourth Longwood student-athlete in the past seven years to graduate as valedictorian of her senior class.

Bound for medical school, Reaver is currently an associate researcher at the Mount Sinai Brain Institute in New York City. In addition to her classroom exploits, she has also gained extensive experience in the medical sector with a number of internships, including a five-week program at a hospital in Argentina during the summer of 2019. It was also during that internship that Reaver was inspired to add Spanish as a second major.

A perennial president’s list honoree, Reaver’s decorated academic career at Longwood ran parallel to her success on the pitch for Longwood women’s soccer. After a freshman season that saw her win Big South Freshman of the Year, she went on to play in more than 60 games and amass more than 5,700 minutes on the field. She was named to the All-Big South team three times, moving from honorable mention as a sophomore to second team as a junior and finally first team as a senior this past spring.

Reaver is the latest in a long line of high-performing student-athletes from Longwood’s women’s soccer program, joining fellow Big South Scholar-Athlete and former teammate Teresa Fruchterman ’18, Longwood University valedictorian and Academic All-American Kelsey McDonald ’15, and current team captain and 2021 Bob McCloskey Insurance Big South Conference Graduate Fellowship recipient Madison Hommey ’21.