TEMPE – For the third consecutive season, Arizona State University softball’s Bailey Wigness has been named a first-team selection on Capital One Academic All-America® Division I Softball team while junior catcher Amber Freeman made her debut on the second team, as announced by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) on Thursday.
A senior double major in political science and communications with a 4.00 GPA, Wigness led Arizona State to a 46-12-1 record and a No. 4 national ranking heading into the NCAA championship where they lost in the regional finals.
The Casa Grande, Ariz., native was the Elite 89 Award recipient at the 2013 Women’s College World Series and a member of the 2011 national championship team. She hit .338 with 30 runs scored and 13 stolen bases en route to earning honorable mention Pac-12 honors.
Wigness is a two-time Pac-12 All-Academic First Team selection pending this year’s selections and the recent graduate has long been among ASU’s most accomplished student-athletes both on and off of the diamond.
The recent graduate was honored as the CLAS Dean’s Medalist – given annually to an outstanding graduate from each of the schools in ASU’s College of Liberal Art and Sciences – from the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication while also being honored with the Moeur Award, given to all graduating seniors who possess a 4.00 GPA.
Wigness finished her time at ASU with a career batting average of .371, which is good for sixth in ASU career history. The starting right fielder for the last three seasons, Wigness had just two errors in her career at the position and had none this season.
Amber Freeman, the 2013 Pac-12 Player of the Year, was named to the Academic All-American team for the first time in her career. The junior catcher boasts a 3.43 GPA in health sciences.
Freeman was a Pac-12 second team All-Academic selection last season and has been a force in the Sun Devil offense on the diamond as well.
The junior finished the season with a career-high .406 batting average with a .659 slugging percentage and 11 home runs. She now has 41 career home runs and will enter her senior season ranked fifth in ASU history in the category.
The selections of Wigness and Freeman represent the 17th and 18th Academic All-America selections for the Sun Devil softball program. Only three individuals from Pac-12 institutions were named to this year's All-America team, of which the Sun Devil duo represented two. Oregon's Cheridan Hawkins was a third-team selection.
All-Time ASU Softball Academic All-Americans
2014 Bailey Wigness, 1st team
2014 Amber Freeman, 2nd team
2013 Sam Parlich, 1st team
2013 Bailey Wigness, 1st team
2012 Hillary Bach, 1st team
2012 Katelyn Boyd, 1st team
2012 Bailey Wigness, 1st team
2012 Annie Lockwood, 3rd team
2011 Katelyn Boyd, 3rd team
2009 Kaitlin Cochran, 1st team
2009 Jessica Mapes, 2nd team
2008 Jackie Vasquez, 2nd team
2008 Kaitlin Cochran, 2nd team
2003 Adriana Garia, 3rd team
2003 Kara Brun, 2nd team
2002 Kara Brun, 2nd team
2001 Erica Beach, 1st team
1997 Stacey Slick, 2nd team