Dowagiac senior Tristan Howard has been named honorable mention academic all-state by the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association.

Tristan Howard

No southwest Michigan players earned first team academic all-state, but St. Joseph’s Nick Walsh was a second team selection.

Also earning honorable mention honors were Decatur’s Brennan Augst, Jared Frank of Lawrence, Jared Hescott of Bangor.

The Wolverine Conference had a second team selection in Andrew Coney of Three Rivers, while the BCS Athletic Conference had an honorable mention pick in Schoolcraft’s Peter Schultz.

Of the 24 first team selections, 20 student-athletes were automatic qualifiers as they scored 295 points out of a possible 300.

Twelve of the first team picks are ranked No. 1 in their class, while of the 118 total nominees, 25 are at the top of their class.

The first team selections also scored well on ACT with one earning a 35, 10 scoring 34, five scoring 33, six scoring 32 and two scoring 31.

Nineteen members have a GPA of 4.0. The average GPA of the first team selections is 3.989.

Earning academic all-state team honors were St. Joseph (3.640) in Division 2, Decatur (3.740) and Eau Claire (3.190) in Division 7.

There were 155 teams nominated for the award.