Texas Lutheran's Skylar Ouellette nominated for NCAA Woman of the Year

SEGUIN, Texas -- Texas Lutheran University selected May 2021 graduate Skylar Ouellette as its nominee for the 2021 NCAA Woman of the Year award.

 

Ouellette's nomination was received by the NCAA and by the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.

 

Ouellette was a four-year starter for TLU Softball. She led the Bulldogs to the 2019 NCAA Division III National Championship and to a national runner-up finish in 2021.

 

For 31 years, the NCAA Woman of the Year program has honored the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of outstanding female college athletes.

Rooted in Title IX and directed by the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics, the NCAA Woman of the Year program celebrates the accomplishments of female college athletes across all three NCAA divisions.

 

Over 220,000 women are competing in college sports, and the NCAA received 535 nominations for this prestigious award.

 

The SCAC used NCAA Woman of the Year nominations from its member institutions to select five finalists for SCAC Woman of the Year. The five finalists for SCAC Woman of the Year were: Ouellette, Ally Longaker (women's basketball) of Austin College, Isabelle Aragon-Menzel (women's volleyball) of Colorado College, Tacoya Allen (women's basketball) of Centenary College, and Zoe Kaffen (women's tennis) of Trinity University.

 

Longaker and Aragon-Menzel were named SCAC Co-Women of the Year.

 

As SCAC co-winners, Longaker and Aragon-Menzel are the conference's nominees for the NCAA Woman of the Year award.

 

All conference nominees will be forwarded to the NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee. The selection committee will choose the top 10 nominees in each division.

 

From among those 30 honorees, the selection committee will determine the top three in each division. From the nine finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics then selects the NCAA Woman of the Year, who will be named this fall.

 

TLU's DeAnna Hernandez, another Bulldog Softball student-athletes, was the 2019-20 SCAC Woman of the Year and a nominee for NCAA Woman of the Year. Hernandez advanced to the Top 30 and then to the Top 9 in last year's NCAA Woman of the Year program.

Ouellette graduated with a 3.77 grade point average. She was a kinesiology (rehabilitation science) major. She was a four-time SCAC Academic Honor Roll member.

 

A three-time All-SCAC selection and a 2021 All-Region award winner, Ouellette was a part of three SCAC Championships, two NCAA Regional Championships, one NCAA Super Regional Championship, one NCAA National Championship, and one NCAA National Runner-up team.

 

Ouellette was named the Most Outstanding Player of the 2019 NCAA DIII McMinnville, Ore. Super Regional and the Most Outstanding Player of the 2019 Marshall, Texas Regional. She was an All-Tournament selection at the 2018, 2019 and 2021 NCAA Regional Tournaments and at the 2019 and 2021 National Championship Finals tournaments.

 

The Bulldogs' right-fielder for the last four seasons, Ouellette ended her TLU Softball career with a career average of .367 (11th-best in TLU history) and with a .427 on-base percentage and a .523 slugging percentage (12th-best in TLU history). She recorded 134 hits, 35 doubles (fourth-most in TLU history), and 103 RBIs (sixth-most in TLU history). In right field, her career fielding percentage was .992. She made just one error in her career.

 

With Ouellette on the team, the Bulldogs went 134-18 (.882) overall in four seasons and posted a conference record of 63-1 (.984). TLU won the NCAA Division III National Championship in 2019 with a 40-8 overall record. The Bulldogs were 19-1 in 2020 when the season was cut short due to COVID-19. The Bulldogs posted a 36-6 overall record in 2021 on its way to a national runner-up finish.