Plaugher Earns Academic Honor

DELAWARE, Ohio - Junior Ashley Plaugher has been named to the ESPN The Magazine first team Academic All-District III in selections announced Thursday by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Plaugher, who has a 3.96 GPA as a Mass Communications/Political Science double major, hit .313 for the Hornets this season and earned All-USA South Conference honors for the third consecutive year.

A third baseman, Plaugher was named as the USA South Conference Player of the Week on March 15 after helping her squad to a sweeps over then No. 1 in the nation Messiah and 2009 NCAA Tournament participant Neumann on consecutive days. 

In addition to her on-field honors, Plaugher was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa leadership honor society in March and is a member of both the Political Science Society, Alpha Chi and the Shenandoah SAAC.

To be eligible for Academic All-District or All-America, student-athletes must be starters or important reserves on their team and have at least a 3.3 GPA on a 4.0 scale with nominees voted on by CoSIDA members within one of eight national districts. The first team district honorees then move on to the national ballot, from which CoSIDA Academic All-America committee members select first, second and third team Academic All-America teams.

Plaugher is the fourth woman from the softball team to earn All-District honors in the past two years. Two of those women, Catherine Beuerle '09, '10 D.PT and Katie Haskins '09, '11 D.PT, were named first team Academic All-America last season.