Cook Selected for 50th Anniversary Scholarship; Three Vulcans to receive Degree Completion Award

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana – Hawai’i Hilo Baseball’s Mason Cook was selected as one of 46 student-athletes to receive an NCAA Division II 50th Anniversary Scholarship as announced at the Division II National Championships Festival in Orlando, Florida.

The NCAA’s Division II was founded in Aug. 1973 and the 50th Anniversary Scholarship is awarded to one male and one female student-athlete from each of the 23 conferences and independent institutions. Award recipients exemplify the “Life in the Balance” philosophy through achievement in academics, athletics and community engagement or campus involvement.

Cook has played in 71 games with 57 starts as a catcher through his two seasons with the Vulcans Baseball team. Of the 46 total awardees, he was the only baseball student-athlete.

A 4.0 cumulative grade point average holder and a Kinesiology & Exercise Sciences major, Cook was also selected for the 2023-24 UH Hilo College of Natural and Health Sciences Excellence Award.

Point Loma Women’s Soccer’s Bethany Arabe was the Pacific West Conference’s female recipient of the scholarship.

“Congratulations to the PacWest Conference scholarship recipients Bethany Arabe and Mason Cook, along with all the recipients who exhibit the Division II core values,” PacWest Commissioner Jessica Harbison Weaver said. “I’m very pleased that NCAA Division II chose to celebrate the rich history of the Division while supporting our PacWest student-athletes in furthering their education.”

Degree completion awards

Additionally, three Vulcans student-athletes — Tom Vorkastner (men’s soccer), Phoebe Barnes (women’s soccer) and Christian Souza (men’s soccer) — were named as recipients of the 2024-25 Division II Degree Completion Award Program.

Started in 2001, the program has provided nearly $8.5 million in financial assistance to over 1,800 student-athletes with exhausted athletics eligibility. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this was the second consecutive year a waiver was approved to allow for selected student-athletes who received an extension of eligibility for the 2020-21 season.

All three of Hawai’i Hilo’s recipients will be utilizing an extra fifth year of eligibility to compete in one final season of competition this upcoming fall.