OKLAHOMA CITY — With the 2019 NCAA Softball season just over a week away, USA Softball has unveiled the Top 50 Watch List for the 2019 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year.  Highlighting the Watch List are two previous USA Softball Player of the Year recipients and three NCAA National Champions. The USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award, which is entering its 18th season, recognizes outstanding athletic achievement by Division I female collegiate softball players across the country.

Previous recipients of the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award, the most prestigious individual honor in NCAA Division I Softball, are Stacey Nuveman (UCLA, 2002), Cat Osterman (Texas, 2003, 2005 and 2006), Jessica Van der Linden (Florida State, 2004), Monica Abbott (Tennessee, 2007), Angela Tincher (Virginia Tech, 2008), Danielle Lawrie (Washington, 2009 and 2010), Ashley Hansen (Stanford, 2011), Keilani Ricketts (Oklahoma, 2012 and 2013), Lacey Waldrop (Florida State, 2014), Lauren Haeger (Florida, 2015), Sierra Romero (Michigan, 2016), Kelly Barnhill (Florida, 2017) and Rachel Garcia (UCLA, 2018).

The Watch List includes 24 seniors, 16 juniors and 10 sophomores, with freshman ineligible for consideration. (Freshman can be considered for the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award once they have competed at the collegiate level).  Athletes named to the Watch List represent 36 NCAA Division I universities and 15 athletic conferences. Among the universities, Arizona and Washington have four athlete representatives apiece, while Florida, Oklahoma, and UCLA have three athletes on the Watch List.  The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is also well represented with 13 athletes, while 12 Pac-12 Conference athletes are on the Watch List.

The Top 25 Finalists for the 2019 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award will be announced April 24. While an athlete does not have to be on the Watch List to be considered for the Top 25, the eventual USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year will come from the Top 25 Finalists. The Top 10 Finalists will be announced May 8 and the Top 3 announced May 22. The 2019 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year will be revealed May 28.

In addition to bestowing the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award, USA Softball is now in its 17th season of presenting the ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 Poll and the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Week, which are announced Tuesdays during the regular season. The preseason ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 Poll was released Jan. 29 with UCLA, Washington, Florida State, Oklahoma and Florida taking the Top 5 spots respectively.

Follow along with NCAA Softball all season long at USASoftball.com

About USA Softball
USA Softball is a 501(c)(3) not-for profit organization headquartered in Oklahoma City, Okla., and is designated as the National Governing Body (NGB) of Softball in the United States and a member of the United States Olympic Committee. One of the nation’s largest sports organizations, USA Softball sanctions competition through a network of Local Associations, which includes all 50 states and select metro associations, and has grown from a few hundred teams in the early days to over 150,000 teams today, representing a membership of more than 2 million.  USA Softball is dedicated to providing people of all ages the opportunity to play the game they love at a variety of levels by offering recreational, league, tournament and competitive play for fast pitch, slow pitch and modified pitch.  USA Softball annually conducts thousands of tournaments throughout the country including over 100 National Championships.  The USA Softball umpire program is among the nation’s largest and are widely known as the best trained umpires in the game.

As the NGB for the sport of softball, USA Softball is responsible for training, equipping and promoting the six USA Softball National Teams that compete in events such as the Olympics, Pan American Games, World Championships and other international and domestic events. For more information on USA Softball, including its founding and history as the Amateur Softball Association of America (ASA), please visit, www.USASoftball.com.

About the NCAA Women’s College World Series:
USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium – OGE Energy Field serves as the home to the NCAA Women’s College World Series (WCWS). For the 29th year, the top eight college teams in the nation will head to Oklahoma City and compete for a national championship. Last year, over 70,000 fans attended the WCWS. Be there with softball fans from across the country May 30-June 4/5 in Oklahoma City. Tickets for the 2019 NCAA WCWS are on sale now, click here to purchase your tickets and secure your championship experience!