| Jessica Rogers |
FRISCO ? UTSA senior Jessica Rogers was named 2007 Capital One/Southland Conference Softball Student-Athlete of the Year for the third time, the league office announced Wednesday.
Rogers added to her impressive list of postseason honors as she became the second Roadrunner to be tabbed Student-Athlete of the Year at least three times (Bryan Wolfe earned four honors in men’s indoor and outdoor track and field). She graduated in December 2006 with her bachelor’s degree in kinesiology and health promotion, accumulating a 3.77 grade point average in the process, and recently completed her first semester of graduate school. A product of South Grand Prairie High School, Rogers earned third-team ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America accolades earlier this month after being voted to the Academic All-District VI First Team in May. She is a two-time UTSA Scholar-Athlete of the Year winner and an eight-time UTSA Dean’s List honoree.
Her success was equally paralleled on the field as she earned first-team All-SLC honors at third base for the fourth time, becoming one of only 11 players in league history to perform that feat. Rogers also was named to the NFCA All-South Region Team for the third time and was one of 20 candidates nationally for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award.
Rogers will go down as one of the all-time great sluggers in SLC history. She shattered three conference career records this season ? home runs (69), runs batted in (192) and total bases (525) ? and also holds school records for runs (159), hits (281), extra-base hits (104) and at-bats (732). She batted .404 (74-for-183) with nine doubles, 18 home runs, 53 RBIs, a .749 slugging percentage, 11 walks, a .442 on-base percentage and two sacrifice flies and led the league in conference play with a .454 batting average, 44 hits, 28 runs, 28 RBIs, 12 home runs, 85 total bases and an .876 slugging percentage. Rogers earned All-SLC Tournament honors for the second time in her career three weeks ago after hitting .455 (5-for-11) with a double, a home run, four RBIs, two runs, an .818 slugging percentage and a .455 OBP.
The student-athlete of the year is annually presented to the individual in each conference sport who achieves excellence in academics and athletics. Nominees shall have earned at least a 3.2 cumulative grade point average to go along with superior athletics achievement.
To qualify for the all-academic team, student-athletes must have a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or higher and participate in at least 50 percent of the team’s scheduled events. Freshmen and first-year transfers are not eligible. Each member institution’s head coach, sports information director and academics coordinator are allowed to vote.
2007 SLC Softball All-Academic Team
Brooke Brodhead, McNeese State
Mandy Collier, Sam Houston State
Lyndsey Gorski, Northwestern State
Kari Hugie, Stephen F. Austin
Jana Jones, McNeese State
Katie Jones, Texas-Arlington
Brooke Lockhart, Southeastern Louisiana
Stephanie Mosley, Sam Houston State
Dee Jay Nelson, Texas-Arlington
Rachel Ray, Southeastern Louisiana
Jessica Rogers, UTSA *
* Student-Athlete of the Year