MOREHEAD, Ky. -- Morehead State rifle senior Amber Schifano has earned perhaps the Ohio Valley Conferences' top academic and civic honor - the OVC Scholar-Athlete Award -  for the 2020-21 year.

Only six student-athletes (three female, three male) are chosen each year from the thousands of student-athletes in the league. Schifano's selection actually marks the third time in the last four years an MSU Rifle athlete has earned Scholar-Athlete, joining Brandon Bryer (2017-18) and Alexa Potts (2018-19). She is just the third MSU female since 2006-07 to earn the honor, when another Rifle athlete -  Lindy Nettleton -  was honored.

Schifano is the 14th woman and 28th overall individual to ever be named Scholar-Athlete from Morehead State.

A native of Belleville, Pa., Schifano is in her fourth year with the Morehead State rifle team, serving as a team captain and helping the Eagles to the 2020 OVC Championship. IN 2020-21, she was named First-Team All-OVC in Air Rifle, placing fifth at the OVC Championship. She was also First-Team in 2019-20, tying for second-place at the 2020 OVC Championship.

She also posted the best air rifle average of any sophomore in MSU program history (587/600) in 2019-20 and qualified for the USA Shooting Junior Olympics in air rifle in 2019 and 2020.

In the classroom she has a 3.92 grade point average in biomedical science/pre-med. Schifano has earned multiple selections to the MSU Dean's List, the OVC Commissioner's Honor Roll and the Collegiate Rifle Association Scholastic All-American Team and has been awarded the George M. Luckey Scholarship for the MSU Honors Program.

She is also a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), serving as secretary, the Tri Beta National Biological Honor Society as President and the MSU Academic Honors Student Association as secretary. She has volunteered with The People's Clinic, the Kentucky Rural Health Association Student Chapter and Setebaid Services among other activities.