Fairfax, Va. - Six Adelphi University student-athletes were honored in the Diverse: Issues in Higher Education publication this spring, as 2022 Arthur Ashe, Jr. Sports Scholars.

The award, inspired by Arthur Ashe's commitment to education and his love of the game of tennis, annually recognizes those students of color who have excelled in the classroom, as well as in the athletic arena.

A different sport was represented among Adelphi's six honorees, who were men's tennis' Salomon Arce Lema, women's track and field's Gabrielle Buissereth, men's soccer's Rodrigo Descalzo Rocca, men's track and field's Desmond Nartey, women's tennis' Barbie Quagliardi and men's basketball's Ronnie Silva.

Arce Lema contributed to his team's second winning conference season in as many years, and maintained a 3.529 cumulative grade-point average in the process. The reigning NE10 First Team All-Conference player followed up his spectacular rookie year with a 4-1 dual singles record and a 5-3 doubles mark.

As the anchor of the team's 4x400 relay, Buissereth capped off a three-peat of gold-medal finishes at the NE10 Championships in 2021-22, on both the indoor and outdoor stage. She also claimed a pair of silver medals in both 400-meter finals -- all while working towards graduating this May with her bachelor's degree in Nursing.

Descalzo's first season in Brown and Gold saw the forward tally a team-high 14 goals and 31 points. Those totals led the NE10 for much of the regular season, and his 14 goals were the most for an Adelphi player since 2009. A CoSIDA Second Team Academic All-American this past fall, Descalzo finished the year with a 3.875 cumulative grade-point average and was praised as Adelphi's Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

Nartey earns the honor of Arthur Ashe, Jr. Sports Scholar for a second time, after posting a 3.962 GPA in his coursework towards receiving a master's in Business Analytics. The sprinter ran a career-best time at the NE10 Outdoor Championships, where he clocked a 10.86 in the 100-meter event and later medaled with a bronze in the finals.

Quagliardi and Silva were both celebrated this year by the athletic department, as Adelphi's Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year and Male Athlete of the Year, respectively.

Quagliardi posted a flawless 4.0 GPA this spring to raise her cumulative grade-point average to a 3.990. She is just as fierce on the court, as she is in the classroom. In addition to being a nationally-ranked doubles player this season, Quagliardi helped lead the Panthers to their first appearance in the NE10 Championship final since 2017, and was named a finalist for the NE10 Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year award.

Meanwhile, Silva continued his dominance on the basketball court. He was the NE10's second-leading scorer at 20.4 points per game and made the second-most three-pointers (104) of any player in Division II. The only two-time NE10 First Team All-Conference player in program history, Silva, a 3.707 cumulative GPA student in Sport Management, was named the Met Basketball Division II Player of the Year and repeated as a CoSIDA Third Team Academic All-American.