The Great Lakes Valley Conference announced its Scholar Athlete of the Year Award recipients on Friday, naming University of Southern Indiana Men’s Basketball senior guard Alex Stein (Evansville, Indiana) and USI Softball junior pitcher Jennifer Leonhardt (Louisville, Kentucky) as the winners in their respective sports. The pair mark the 37th and 38th Screaming Eagles to have garnered this award since its inception in 1998.
Stein collects yet another in a stream of recognition after rounding out his career in an Eagles uniform by garnering the GLVC Men’s Basketball Scholar Athlete of the Year award, becoming the first player in program history to win the award.
The Evansville native led the Eagles with 20.9 points per contest (one tenth of a point from leading the GLVC in that category) and captured the all-time scoring mark at USI en route to the Eagles’ fourth Elite Eight and third national semifinal appearance in program history. The Business Administration major received two CoSIDA Academic All-District, a Google Cloud third-team Academic All-America, and three Academic All-GLVC nods while at USI.
Leonhardt received the conference honor after another fantastic season in the circle for the Eagles, leading USI to another NCAA Midwest Super Regional appearance in 2019. Leonhardt is the third USI Softball player to capture the conference award, first since current assistant coach MacKenzi Dorsam ’15 received the award in 2015.
The 2019 GLVC Pitcher of the Year already holds all-time USI records for strikeouts (711), wins (76) and is tied for the program lead with 33 complete-game shutouts. The Biology major has collected Academic All-GLVC, All-District and All-America honors since the close of the 2019 season.
