OKLAHOMA CITY — USA Softball has officially unveiled the Top 50 Watch List for the 2024 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year. With the highly-anticipated 2024 NCAA Division I Softball season quickly approaching, the prestigious award aims to recognize outstanding athletic achievement across Division I female collegiate softball players from across the nation.
Click here to view the 2024 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year Top 50 Watch List »
The 2024 Top 50 Watch List highlights athletes from 28 universities and six athletic conferences with Oklahoma leading the universities in recognition as six Sooners join the list followed by UCLA with four athletes and Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and LSU tabbing three athletes apiece. Additionally, eight universities are highlighted by two athletes on the list while 14 collegiate programs tally one. Among the 50 athletes and returning to the spotlight of the prestigious award is 2023 Player of the Year, Valerie Cagle (Clemson) along with 2023 Top 3 Finalists, Skylar Wallace (Florida) and Maya Brady (UCLA) — while four additional 2023 Top 10 Finalists also return to the list including Jordy Bahl (Nebraska), Jayda Coleman (Oklahoma), Tiare Jennings (Oklahoma) and Kiki Milloy (Tennessee).
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) leads the athletic conferences with 21 athletes included followed by the Pac-12 Conference with 11, Big 12 Conference with 10 and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) with seven. Also represented is the American Athletic Conference (AAC) with two athletes and the Big Ten Conference with one.
Branded as the most prominent individual honor in NCAA Division I Softball, previous recipients of the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award include Stacey Nuveman (UCLA – 2002), Cat Osterman (2003, 2005, 2006 – Texas), Jessica Van der Linden (Florida State – 2004), Monica Abbott (2007 – Tennessee), Angela Tincher (2008 – Virginia Tech), Danielle Lawrie (2009, 2010 – Washington), Ashley Hansen (Stanford – 2011), Keilani Ricketts (2012, 2013 – Oklahoma), Lacey Waldrop (2014 – Florida State), Lauren Haeger (2015 – Florida), Sierra Romero (2016 – Michigan), Kelly Barnhill (2017 – Florida), Rachel Garcia (2018, 2019 – UCLA), Jocelyn Alo (2021, 2022 – Oklahoma) and most recently, Valerie Cagle (2023 – Clemson).
The Top 25 Finalists for the 2024 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award will be announced on May 1. While an athlete does not have to be on the Watch List to be considered for the Top 25, the eventual USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year will come from the Top 25 Finalists. The Top 10 Finalists will be revealed May 15 with the Top 3 being released May 20. The 2024 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year will be announced prior to the NCAA Women’s College World Series (WCWS).
In addition to crowning the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year, USA Softball is now in its 22nd season of presenting the ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 Poll which is announced on Tuesdays during the regular season. The 2024 Preseason ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 Poll was released on Jan. 23 with Oklahoma, Tennessee, Stanford, Florida State and Texas ranking in the Top 5 respectively.
Follow along with NCAA Softball all season long at USASoftball.com.