Pacific players work to find balance in being student-athletes

Hide captionSTOCKTON - Back in mid-July, Alex Holt and Melissa Ma sat side-by-side at a conference table inside the Pacific Intercollegiate Athletics Center. They looked comfortable, almost at home inside the building.

The paths for Holt, a volleyball player, and Ma, a soccer player, have been largely different. Both have had hiccups on the way to finding the right balance between student, athlete and member of the community.

Both have become an exemplary mix of the three. And for the both of them, their work on and off the field isn’t over yet.

According to the Pacific athletic department, a combined 51 student-athletes received a 4.0 grade point average (GPA) in the 2017-2018 school year,…