TEMPE -- The 2016 College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-District™ Baseball and Softball Teams have been released to recognize the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances athletically and in the classroom. Arizona State University senior centerfielder Jennifer Soria was named to the All-District VIII team.
It is the first time that Soria has earned All-Academic honors in the district, which represents schools located in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawai’i, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Canada.
Soria, a Family and Human Development Major, will be earning her degree in the next couple weeks and brought a 3.49 cumulative GPA into her final semester at Arizona State. Soria was a Pac-12 All-Academic honorable mention selection in 2015.
A career .247 hitter prior to 2016, Soria is batting .353 on the season (third on the team) and leads the team with 13 home runs after having just eight total in her career prior to this year. Her 46 runs scored this year are 14 more than any other Devil and fifth in the Pac-12. She is now 21st in ASU history with 21 career home runs and also 21st in single-season history with 13 home runs this year.
Soria has advanced runners 45 times on 81 chances this season (.556) and is second on the team with 16 hits with runners in scoring position. With 10 doubles this season, Soria is tied for the team lead and has surpassed her career total of eight entering the season. The senior brings a team-leading eight-game hitting streak into the weekend and has multiple hits in four of those, leading the team with 16 multi-team hits overall.
The senior’s defense is good for just about a highlight a game and earned her Pac-12 All-Defensive honors last season. She’s accounted for 86 putouts in center field this season, 23 more than any other pure centerfielder in the conference (Cal’s Jazmyn Jackson has 78 putouts but spent the pre-conference season in left field and the infield) and 20 more than any Sun Devil player in at least a decade.
Hey @espn @SportsCenter, go ahead and save a spot for @jennsoria5 as she steals this three-run shot! #SCTop10https://t.co/1qR7S9c11a
— Sun Devil Softball (@ASUSoftball) May 1, 2016
She was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week after the Cal series after she went 7-for-13 on the weekend with a whopping four home runs, slugging an otherworldly 1.462 over the course of three games. She knocked a team-leading six RBIs and scored seven runs in the series, four more than any other player on the roster and nearly a third of the total 22 runs scored by the Sun Devils overall.
Only first teams were chosen for both the baseball and softball district teams, so all honorees – including Soria - will advance to the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Team ballot, where first-, second- and third-team All-America honorees will be selected later this month.