Imagine a softball squad that boasts the most prodigious home-run hitter in NCAA history and yet it is another teammate, on the cusp of her own record-setting season, named the top player in the country.
UCLA senior first baseman Jordan Woolery has been honored as Softball America’s National Player of the Year, the outlet announced Tuesday morning.
Woolery is hitting .506 with 34 home runs and a program-record 111 RBIs. No player in NCAA Division I history has hit above .500 with at least 30 home runs and 100 RBIs in a season.
She and the Bruins are coming off a 3-0 record in the NCAA Los Angeles Regional — surviving 12-11 after a wildly improbable comeback to defeat California Baptist on Friday; knocking off South Carolina 7-2 in the semifinal Saturday; and then destroying the Gamecocks 15-1 in Sunday’s final.
UCLA (50-8) will host Central Florida (41-17-1), which stunned ninth-ranked Florida State to advance out of the Tallahassee Regional, in this weekend’s NCAA Los Angeles Super Regional. The first game of the best-of-three series is at 6 p.m. Friday at Easton Stadium. Game 2 is scheduled for 6 p.m. Saturday, with an if-necessary Game 3 on Sunday at a time to be determined.
Woolery’s 34 homers this season, tied for fifth most in NCAA history, trail only teammate Megan Grant, who has surpassed Lauren Espinoza’s 31-year-old record of 37 homers with 40 round-trippers, and Oklahoma’s Kendall Wells (37). Woolery ranks second in the nation behind Grant in slugging percentage (1.191) and OPS (1.794).
The four-time all-conference first-teamer – two in the Pac-12, two in the Big Ten – is second all-time with 111 RBIs and 212 total bases this season. Espinoza, the former Arizona star, set both marks with 128 RBIs and 232 total bases in 1995.
Woolery, who attended Clayton Valley Charter High in Concord, adds to her list of accomplishments this season: Big Ten Player of the Year, First Team All-Big Ten and NFCA All-West Region. She is also a Top 10 finalist for the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award for the second year in a row.