AUSTIN, Texas – Southern Oregon University’s Lauren Quirke, who played third base and pitched for the Raiders, headlined the Academic All-America® NAIA softball team, as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) and released Monday.
The NAIA Academic All-America® program is financially supported by the NAIA national governance structure to assist CoSIDA with handling the awards fulfillment aspects for the 2020-21 NAIA Academic All-America® teams.
Quirke was named the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Team Member of the Year for NAIA softball. The San Mateo, California native is the first Raiders softball player to ever be named to the Academic All-America® NAIA softball first team and is the first-ever repeat selection for the program having earned second-team honors last season.
The 2021 NAIA Player of the Year, Quirke posted a 4.0 cumulative grade-point average in her human resource management graduate work after earning a bachelor’s degree in communications with a 3.51 GPA. She also excelled on the field as she ranked No. 1 in hits (101), No. 2 in RBIs (70) and total bases (162), No. 5 in batting average (.488) and No. 6 in runs scored (64) in the NAIA. She hit 10 home runs and 20 doubles, broke the Cascade Collegiate Conference career batting average record at .470, and as a pitcher went 17-2 with a 1.84 ERA.
In addition to leading the Raiders to back-to-back NAIA national championships, Quirke was also named both the Cascade Collegiate Conference's Women's Athlete of the Year and Scholar-Athlete of the Year. She was one of three first-team honorees with at least a 3.90 GPA.
SOU’s Hannah Shimek also joined Quirke on the CoSIDA Academic All-America team, grabbing second-team honors. The Raider second baseman batted .423 with 43 RBIs and an NAIA-best 69 runs scored. She also was second in the NAIA in triples (10) and fifth in total hits (91), stole 34 bases on 37 attempts, and landed at or near the top on several SOU career leaderboards.