Seven Ladies Named To All-SCAC Team
Caelee Clark of Texas Lutheran University repeated as the Player-of-the-Year and her teammate Ashlyn Strother completed the four-peat as the league’s Pitcher-of-the-Year in exclusive 2024 all-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) voting by the conference’s head coaches and sports information directors.
SEGUIN, Texas – Caelee Clark of Texas Lutheran University repeated as the Player-of-the-Year and her teammate Ashlyn Strother completed the four-peat as the league's Pitcher-of-the-Year in exclusive 2024 all-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) voting by the conference's head coaches and sports information directors. Complete Release
In the same balloting, Trinity University's Hannah Boudreaux was named the conference's Newcomer-of-the-Year, while her head coach Bailey Wittenauer and the Tiger staff earned SCAC Staff-of-the-Year honors.
As for the composition of the All-SCAC team, Texas Lutheran led with eight combined selections (First/Second Team), including a league high six First Team honorees. Trinity followed closely with six selections, St. Thomas with five, Southwestern three, Centenary two and Schreiner with one.
Clark, a sophomore second baseman from Montgomery, Texas is currently sitting at the top of nearly every statistical category heading into this weekend's conference tournament. She leads the nation in stolen bases with 78, setting a new NCAA Division III record and breaking the old mark of 77 set by former TLU standout Kelly Jurden in 2022. The next benchmark for Clark will be 80 stolen bases - the NCAA Division-I record held by East Carolina's Michelle Ward (1994). Clark's 78 stolen bases are the seventh most in NCAA history, regardless of division with Shaw University's LaTosha Stevens holding the NCAA all-level record with 96 in 1992 on the Division-II level. Additionally, Clark leads the SCAC with a .495 batting average (55-for-111) and is currently second in the conference in hits (55), runs (42) and on-base percentage (.556). In conference-only play, Clark paced the league in both hits with 39 and runs scored with 33. She also goes into this weekend's tournament seventh in the league with 15 walks drawn and ninth with a .559 slugging percentage. Clark has registered a hit in 27 of her 31 games played, recorded 18 multi-hit efforts and from March 17th to April 6th orchestrated an impressive 13-game hit streak.
Clark is the third student-athlete in SCAC Softball history to win multiple Player-of-the-Year honors, joining former member, DePauw University's Rachel Gill (2007, 2009) and TLU's Jurden (2019, 2021). She joins Jurden as the only other athlete to win the award in back-to-back seasons.
Clark is the eighth different Texas Lutheran student athlete in the last 10 years to earn SCAC Player-of-the-Year honors. Her selection marks the 10th consecutive year a TLU player has won or shared the award. Clark received 12 first-place votes in the SCAC Player-of-the-Year balloting, while sophomore catcher Chloe Bennett of St. Thomas received the final four votes.
Strother, a senior right-hander from Seabrook, Texas heads into this weekend's SCAC Tournament with a perfect 17-0 record and sits atop the league in nearly every statistical category. She is currently first in wins (17), ERA (0.93), strikeouts (126), strikeouts per seven innings (9.03) and WHIP (0.72), while ranking third in innings pitched at 97.2. Her 11 complete games this year is currently second among all SCAC pitchers.
Historically, Strother has cemented herself as one of the best to ever play in the SCAC as she possesses the best winning percentage of any pitcher in league history (.943 – 82-5) and her career 0.95 ERA ranks tops in league history. Her 82 career wins and 594 strikeouts are second all-time in league history. A 15-time SCAC Pitcher of the Week honoree during her career, Strother is just the sixth player and fifth pitcher in SCAC softball history to earn four First Team All-SCAC honors.
Strother is the first pitcher is SCAC history to earn four-straight Pitcher-of-the-Year honors, and her selection marks the ninth time in the last 10 seasons a TLU Bulldog has earned SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Year accolades. She picked up 12 first-place votes in the balloting with Trinity's Jordan Arce receiving three first-place votes and St. Thomas' Allison Hughes earning the final remaining vote.
Boudreaux, a first-year catcher/designated player from Pearland, Texas, made her presence felt immediately in the lineup for the Tigers, starting in 39 of 40 games played. She currently resides among the league leaders in nearly every statistical category, including second in RBI with 36, tied for second with 14 doubles, tied for third with 51 hits and her .411 (51-for-124) batting average is seventh. All four of those marks are tops among first-year players. She has also drawn 11 walks and boasts a .464 on-base percentage, which ranks ninth in the league. Boudreaux collected a hit in 29 of her 40 games, including an 11-game hit streak from February 13th to March 9th and she registered an impressive 18 multi-hit efforts this season. She is the third different Tiger to earn SCAC Newcomer-of-the-Year and the first since Katie Castillon was honored back in 2014.
Boudreaux received eight votes in balloting for SCAC Newcomer-of-the-Year, followed by Southwestern pitcher Sophia Ytuarte, who secured four votes. Texas Lutheran outfielder Tatum Seith and St. Thomas pitcher Victoria Sossaman split the remaining four votes.
In her first season at the helm at Trinity, Whittenauer led the Tigers to an outstanding 29-11 overall record, the most wins for the program since 2006. Trinity enters this weekend's SCAC Tournament as the No. 2 seed after posting a 17-4 mark in league play, the most conference wins and first time the Tigers have earned a bye in the tournament since 2016. Trinity has already improved on last year's record by 14 wins, the highest win total improvement from one season to the next in the SCAC since Centenary won 16 more games in 2016 following the 2015 season. The Tigers seven-win improvement in conference play from last year is the highest jump in league wins since Southwestern improved seven wins in 2019 from the 2018 season. Trinity won 13 of its final 15 contests to close out the regular season and put together a nine-game winning streak from March 29th through April 13th, the longest such streak for the Tigers since 2014.
Whittenauer is the fourth different coach in Tiger softball history to earn SCAC Coach-of-the-Year accolades, and her honor marks the seventh time in program history a Trinity coach has received Coach of the Year accolades and the first since Selena Collins was recognized back in 2012 .
2024 SCAC Player-of-the-Year
Caelee Clark Texas Lutheran So. 2B Montgomery, Texas
2024 SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Year
Ashlyn Strother Texas Lutheran Sr. P Seabrook, Texas
2024 SCAC Newcomer-of-the-Year
Hannah Boudreaux Trinity Fy. DH Corpus Christi, Texas
2024 SCAC Staff-of-the-Year
Bailey Wittenauer Trinity 17-4 SCAC / 29-11 overall / SCAC No. 2 Seed
To view the entire 2024 All-SCAC Softball Team, click here.
