(Story from Texas Lutheran University Athletics)

SEGUIN, Texas – Texas Lutheran sophomore outfielder Kelly Jurden has been named the 40th Academic All-American® in school history. Complete CoSIDA Release
 
Jurden was named Tuesday to the Google Cloud Academic All-America® Division III Softball Team. She was voted to the Academic All-America® Second Team.
 
The Academic All-America® honor is the first for Jurden, who led TLU to the 2019 NCAA Division III Softball National Championship eight days ago.
 
Jurden holds a perfect 4.0 grade point average majoring in business and information systems. She played and started in 47 games for TLU as a starting outfielder and as the team's lead-off hitter. Jurden was named the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Player of the Year.
 
Jurden also claimed National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Second Team All-America honors as a player. Plus, she was named the 2019 NCAA Division III recipient of the New Balance/NFCA Golden Shoe Award, an award given the best base stealer in each collegiate division.
 
Jurden stole 61 bases in 63 attempts in 2019 and set new school and SCAC records for stolen bases in a season. She led NCAA Division III in total steals and in stolen bases per game (1.30).
 
In addition to her stolen base records, Jurden tied the school record for runs scored in a season (59), came within one walk (with 28) of the single-season walks record, posted the second-best single-season on-base percentage (.543), and recorded the third-best single-season batting average (.458).
 
Jurden came within three hits of the single-season hits record. She ended the year with 66. She moved into second on the TLU career batting average record chart for players with at least 250 career at-bats. Jurden is hitting .413 in her Bulldog career.
 
With 90 stolen bases in just two seasons, Jurden is now third all-time on the TLU career steals list. She is just 10 steals from tying, and 11 from breaking, former Bulldog Ashley Jacobsen's career steals mark of 100.
 
With Jurden leading the way, the Bulldogs stormed to the national title in Tyler, Texas last week with 12-4 and 6-1 victories over Emory (Ga.) in the best-of-three championship series.
 
TLU won all five games it played at the DIII College World Series and went 10-1 in NCAA post-season play during its championship run.
 
The Bulldogs were 3-0 in the Marshall, Texas Regional, 2-1 in the McMinnville, Ore. Super Regional (against Linfield College), and 5-0 at the World Series.
 
Counting the three wins and no defeats at the 2019 SCAC Softball Championship, the Bulldogs were 13-1 overall in the 2019 post-season.
 
The Bulldogs (40-8) finished 2019 with an 11-4 record against teams ranked in the final Top 25 poll. TLU was the unanimous No. 1 team in the season-ending DIII poll issued by the NFCA.
 
Jurden is the ninth all-time Academic All-American in TLU Softball history. Eight of those Academic All-Americans have come in the Wade Wilson coaching era. Jurden's award is the eighth honor for a TLU Softball player in the last six years.
 
Jurden is the first TLU Softball player to claim a Google Cloud/CoSIDA Academic All-America honor and an NFCA playing All-America award in the same year.

The Google Cloud Academic All-America® awards are announced by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). University sports information directors nominate award recipients. Academic All-District® and Academic All-America® honors are determined by votes among the CoSIDA membership.

The Division III Academic All-America® program is being financially supported by the NCAA Division III national governance structure to assist CoSIDA with handling the awards fulfillment aspects for the 2018-19 Division III Academic All-America® teams program.
 
For more information on the Google Cloud Academic All-America® program, go to https://academicallamerica.com/