May 6, 2010

EL PASO, Texas – UTEP softball’s Stacie Townsend was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District VI first team, as announced by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) on Thursday.

Townsend becomes the first player at UTEP to receive the honor since soccer’s Brittany Popoff, Jamie Tullius and Angie Kleinfelder (third team) were recognized in 2005.

With the first team honors, Townsend becomes eligible for CoSIDA Academic All-America® honors.

Townsend, who has started all 48 games for the Miners, is a graduate student in the College of Business, concentrating on economics. She has maintained a 4.0 grade point average while enrolled at UTEP since 2006. She received her bachelor’s degree a year ago, graduating Suma Cum-Laude. Townsend was named a UTEP Alumni Association Top-10 Senior, the University of Texas at El Paso Woman of the Year, the 2009 C-USA Scholar Athlete of the Year. She is a three-time C-USA Commissioner’s Academic Medalist while being named to the Commissioner’s Honor Roll and is a two-time league All-Academic team selection.

The Orlando, Fla. native owns the UTEP career record for runs, RBIs, home runs, total bases, walks, wins, ERA, strikeouts, strikeouts looking and shutouts.

She was named the Louisville Slugger/NFCA Division I National Player of the Week on Feb. 23, a day after becoming just the third player in league history to sweep Pitcher and Hitter of the Week honors. The senior hurler has since been awarded the league’s weekly prize two other times (March 22 and April 5).

Townsend became the first pitcher in program history to collect 700 strikeouts for her career, 300 for a season and is the only hurler to record 200 K’s twice in a career. She is also the only player in the circle to reach the 20-win plateau, garnering 25 triumphs so far in 2010 on the rubber.

Townsend collected two top-25 victories this campaign (no. 22 Baylor and no. 25 Fresno State) and had her first career no-hitter against Belmont, recording 18 K’s in the process to break the single-game record in school annals.

Townsend currently ranks nationally in strikeouts per game (8^th), walks (9^th), wins (11^th) and on base percentage (15^th), to name a few. She collected five shutout victories and recorded 11 double-digit K games in 2010 (four in C-USA).

The senior hurler will play her final series at Helen of Troy in UTEP’s three-game set against UCF. Saturday’s doubleheader is slated for 12 p.m. with the final game of the series on Sunday at noon. Townsend, alongside Kelly Curran and Ashley Ellis will be honored following Sunday’s contest.

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