(Full Conference Release and Team)

SEGUIN, Texas -- In exclusive 2019 all-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) voting by the league's head coaches, sophomore outfielder Kelly Jurden of Texas Lutheran University was selected the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Softball Player of the Year, and teammate and freshman second baseman Casey Martin was named SCAC Newcomer of the Year.

Southwestern's Lindsey Longuet picked up SCAC Pitcher of the Year honors, and Southwestern's Angela Froboese was voted Coach of the Year. 

Jurden (Brenham/Brenham) made her second-straight appearance on the all-conference team after being named second-team as a freshman.

Jurden currently ranks in the top two of nearly statistical category heading into this weekend's conference tournament. She is second in the SCAC in batting average (.453) and hit a league-best .485 in conference games. She is also first in on-base percentage (.535), first in walks (19), first in runs scored (44), second in hits (48) and first in the SCAC with 33 hits in league play.

Jurden also set a new SCAC and TLU marks for stolen bases in a single season with 44. She was the SCAC Offensive Player of the Week in Week 5 of the regular season when she hit .583 over four games and posted an on-base percentage of .706 with six stolen bases and five runs scored to lead the Bulldogs to a 3-1 series win over Southwestern.

Jurden is the sixth different Texas Lutheran student-athlete in the last six years to earn SCAC Player of the Year honors. 

Jurden received four votes in the SCAC Player of the Year balloting, while junior utility Katie Bricarell of Southwestern University received the remaining three first-place votes. 

Martin, a freshman second baseman from Pearland, Texas, is the third TLU student-athlete to win SCAC Newcomer-of-the-Year honors in the last four years. She ranks in the top five in a handful of statistics leading into the weekend's conference tournament including first in batting average (.464), second in on-base percentage (.526), third in slugging percentage (.595) and tied for fourth in both stolen bases (20) and RBI (19) in SCAC play.

Defensively, Martin carries a .989 fielding percentage with just one error heading into tournament action. She was the SCAC Offensive Player of the Week in Week 9 when she hit .667 (8-for-12) with six runs scored, 10 RBI, three walks, six stolen bases and a pair of three-hit games in the Bulldogs' four-game sweep of Austin College.

Martin received six votes in the balloting for SCAC Newcomer-of-the-Year. Freshman pitcher Hannah Scoggin of Centenary picked up the remaining vote. 

In addition to the honors received by Jurden and Martin, both named to the All-SCAC First Team, the Bulldogs also put first baseman Madisyn Cates (Baytown/Sterling), third baseman Kassie Maddox (Midland/Greenwood), outfielder DeAnna Hernandez  (Sugar Land/Dulles), utility player Chassety Raines (Spring/Klein Collins), and pitcher Kayla Oliveira (San Diego, Texas/San Diego) on the First Team.

Cates is hitting .416 with 26 RBI and seven doubles. Maddox is hitting .377 with 11 RBI, two home runs and 14 runs scored. Hernandez is hitting .364 with eight RBI and 25 runs scored.

Raines is hitting .382 with 13 RBI, and she is 7-0 in the circle with an ERA of 0.50. Oliveira is TLU's wins leader, with 11. She is 11-3 with an ERA of 1.38.

Bulldogs on the All-SCAC Second Team include: catcher Erica Garcia (Deer Park/Deer Park) and designated player Kali Chatham (Moody/Moody).

Honorable Mention selections for TLU were shortstop Cassie Roche (Corpus Christi/Gregory-Portland) and Skylar Ouellette (Corpus Christi/Gregory-Portland).