ARLINGTON, Texas – Jade Bontke and Solano Caffarena have been selected as finalists for the Stan Bates Award, as announced by the Western Athletic Conference on Friday afternoon.
 
The annual award was named in honor of former WAC Commissioner Stan Bates and is given to the WAC's top male and female scholar-athletes. It recognizes athletic, academic and community accomplishments. The award includes a $10,000 postgraduate scholarship.
 
Off the track, Bontke is very active within the community. She has volunteered with several entities spanning from Mission Arlington, Miracle League Arlington, Soles4Shoes, Salvation Army and Cooks Children Hospital. With Mission Arlington, she helped with food and clothes drives. She assisted incoming freshmen with moving into their dorms, participated in athlete-community outreach events as well as assisting with anything during cross country meets and track meets she was not participating in.
 
In the classroom, Bontke maintained a 4.0 grade point average for six years, making the Dean's List every semester along the way. She earned her B.S. in Biology as well as earning another B.S. in Exercise Science, finishing Summa Cum Laude for both. Bontke was also an All-WAC honoree in 2023 and 2024 as well as an Academic All-American in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024. Bontke was a 2023-2024 UTA Female Student-Athlete of the Year nominee.
 
A member of the UTA men's tennis team, Caffarena has had a helping hand in securing two WAC regular season and tournament titles. During the 2024 season, Caffarena posted a 6-8 singles record and a 6-6 doubles record while going 3-1 in conference play. During tournament play he went 1-1 in singles and 1-0 in doubles. In 2023, Caffarena was a First Team All-WAC selection for singles and doubles after he finished with a 15-11 singles record with an 11-7 record in doubles matches while going 4-4 in tournament play.
 
In the classroom, Caffarena was named to the Academic All-WAC Team for the 2022-23 year. He was named to the Honor Roll all four years at UTA as well as being named an ITA All-Academic Scholar-Athlete. Caffarena is also a Goolsby Leadership scholar and a Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society scholar.
 
Out in the community, Caffarena helped Mission Arlington with food, clothing and toiletry drives as well as working with various drives alongside the Salvation Army. He initiated a community service program between his teammates to foster sports culture for social change.
 
Winners will be announced in the coming weeks.
 

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