Courtesy of Wichita State Athletics
WICHITA, Kan. - USA Softball unveiled its Top 50 Collegiate Player of the Year Watch List Wednesday morning, and for the second straight season Addison Barnard makes the cut.
Barnard is the only student-athlete on the watch list from a Non-Power 5 school.
A three-time First Team All-Conference selection and a 2022 All-American, Barnard enters her senior campaign fully healthy after battling injuries for almost the entire 2023 season. Despite a significant injury sustained early in the season, the Beatrice, Neb. native still played in 52 games and hit .369 with nine doubles, four triples, 14 home runs, 36 RBI and stole 22 bases. Entering the 2024 season, Barnard ranks second on the NCAA DI active career home run list with 69.
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 and Big 12 Conference with 11 and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) with seven. Also represented is the American Athletic Conference (AAC) and Big Ten Conference with one each.
USA Softball will trim the list to 25 on May 1, before naming 10 finalists on May 15 and the final three on May 20.
About USA Softball
​​​USA Softball (USAS) is a 501(c)(3) not-for profit organization headquartered in Oklahoma City, Okla., and is designated as the National Governing Body (NGB) of Softball in the United States and a member of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee. One of the nation's largest sports organizations, USAS sanctions competition through a network of Local Associations, which includes all 50 states and select metro associations. USAS is dedicated to providing people of all ages the opportunity to play the game they love at a variety of levels by offering recreational, league, tournament and competitive play for fast pitch, slow pitch and modified pitch. USAS annually conducts thousands of tournaments throughout the country including over 100 National Championships. The USAS umpire program is among the nation's largest and are widely known as the best trained umpires in the game.
As the NGB for the sport of softball, USAS is responsible for training, equipping and promoting the six USA Softball National Teams that compete in events such as the Olympics, Pan American Games, World Championships and other international and domestic events. For more information on USAS, including its founding and history as the Amateur Softball Association of America (ASA), please visit, www.USASoftball.com.