ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Illinois State all-time greats Heather Stella and Kara Nelson were among 10 players named to the Missouri Valley Conference Softball 25-Year Team, the league office announced Thursday.
The 2017-18 season is a landmark one for the MVC and women's sports, and to help celebrate the 45th anniversary of Title IX and the 25th anniversary of women's sports in the league, the Valley is naming 25-year anniversary teams for each of the league's sponsored women's sports.
Stella and Nelson are joined on the 25-year anniversary team by: Tara Oltman (Creighton), Renae Sinkler (Creighton), Dani Tyler (Drake), Jessica Huff (Evansville), Barb Gaines (Missouri State), Lindsay Wood Stanford (UNI), Amy Harre (Southern Illinois) and Erin Stremsterfer Campbell (Southern Illinois).
A total of 38 student-athletes were nominated for the MVC Softball 25-year Team, and the 25-person committee made up of two representatives from each MVC institution and a panel of five voters from the Conference office determined a 'Top 10' from a list of 25 finalists.
Stella played for head coach Melinda Fischer from 1996-99 and became Illinois State's first two-time All-American, after being named an Easton Sports First-Team All-America in 1998 while collecting second-team honors in 1999. She was also named to the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) All-America Third Team in 1998 and 1999. For her success in the classroom, the three-time MVC Scholar-Athlete Team selection earned College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America honors in 1999 to become Redbird softball's first athletic and academic All-American and is one of only three in program history.
After being named the MVC Rookie of the Year in 1996, Stella garnered the league's Player of the Year title in 1998 and 1999 with an all-conference second-team selection in 1997. She became the first player in MVC history to be named rookie of the year and league MVP. Stella batted .385 for her career – the fifth-best mark in league history – with 47 doubles, 25 home runs and 157 RBI, which ranks fourth in MVC history. Her doubles mark ranks second in ISU history, while her RBI mark and 224 career hits rank third all-time. She still owns the single-season record at ISU in batting average with a .445 clip in 1999, which ranks fourth all-time in the Valley.
Stella became the first Redbird softball player to be drafted by the Women's Professional Softball League (WPSL) and also participated in the 1999 USA Olympic tryouts. Stella is a 2010 Illinois State Athletics Percy Family Hall of Fame inductee.
During her rookie campaign, Nelson was named to the 2007 Easton All-America First Team, while being selected to the 2007 Louisville Slugger/NFCA Division I All-America Second Team. She became the first-ever freshman to earn the MVC Player of the Year award, after she led the league the majority of the season in at-bats, runs, hits and batting average.
Nelson was named to the ASA Initial Top-50 Watch List for National Player of the Year in 2008 and 2009, before being granted a medical hardship by the NCAA in 2009 after suffering an injury to her hand. She made her comeback in 2010 and earned NFCA All-America Third-Team honors alongside teammate Abby Olson, marking the first time in Redbird history that two athletes were named NFCA All-Americans in the same season.
In her final season as a Redbird, Nelson was named to the Easton All-America Second Team and earned Louisville Slugger/NFCA All-Mideast Region Second Team honors. The 2011 MVC Player of the Year was named one of 30 finalists for the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award. Nelson held ISU career records for hits, doubles, runs scored, games started, total bases, at-bats, and batting average and single season records for hits, runs scored and at-bats at the end of her playing career.
The four-time first-team all-conference selection became the first player in Valley history to reach the 300-hit plateau, ending her career with a league record 301 hits after going 2-for-4 in her final game. Nelson is the only player in ISU history to reach the 300 career hit mark. She posted a remarkable .417 average during her senior campaign to finish with a program-record career batting average of .401 after leading the league in each of her four season in the category. The 90 hits she recorded in 2007 still stands as the only 90-hit season in Valley history and she also holds the career runs record with 189. Nelson was inducted to the Illinois State Athletics Percy Family Hall of Fame in 2017.
The 2018 Illinois State softball team will take its final road trip of the regular season this weekend when it travels to UNI, before hosting Valparaiso for senior weekend on May 5-6 at Marian Kneer Stadium.
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