HATTIESBURG, Miss. (May 9, 2017) -- FIU freshman hurler Shannon Saile (Land O'Lakes, Florida / Land O'Lakes HS) was named the 2017 Conference USA Softball Freshman of the Year, and the Panthers produced three First-Team All-C-USA performers, four total on the postseason honors, the league announced today. The vote comes on the heels of the start of the 2017 Conference USA Championships, and the votes were by the league's 12 head coaches. Saile was a First-Team All-Conference USA Pitcher along with first-team infielder Stephanie Texeira, first-team outfielder Jackie Schoff and second-team infielder Ashley Leon.

Saile also secured first-team honors, the first FIU pitcher ever to achieve that since the move to C-USA, in addition to landing on the C-USA All-Freshman Team. She is the second Freshman of the Year in Conference USA for FIU, the fifth all-time for the program. She posted the third-best rate in hits allowed per seven innings (3.24) in the country, and led the league in earned run average (1.46, 30^th in the NCAA), shutouts (8, tied for 15^th nationally), saves (4, tied for 18^th in Division I), opponent batting average (.140) and strikeouts per seven innings (8.35, 24^th in the country), while finishing second in total strikeouts (215) and third in victories (17). She set new school single-season marks for opponent batting average, tying the season record for shutouts, while posting the second-most strikeouts in a season. She finished with nine of the team's 17 C-USA victories, recording saves in three other league outings. Saile finished strong, winning the last two league pitcher of the week honors. She was 7-0 with two saves (including a 6-0 against C-USA programs) in her last nine appearances, helping FIU to finish 10-0 at home (24-2 for the season at home) and secure the number-two seed at the C-USA Championships. She struck out exactly 100 C-USA hitters, holding league teams to a .133 batting average and posting a 1.09 ERA in 13 C-USA appearances. Saile tied the C-USA season high with 14 strikeouts in a game, fanning 14 in the series opener against WKU on April 29. She led all players in Conference USA by collecting four weekly awards.
 
Joining Saile on the First-Team All-Conference USA unit is senior first baseman Stephanie Texeira, giving her four all-conference selections in her illustrious career, but she is the first infielder to earn first-team honors in C-USA. The Miami native, and product of Gulliver Prep, led Conference USA with eight homers in league games only, setting a new personal record with 14 home runs for the season, third-most in C-USA. FIU's only other C-USA Freshman of the Year (2014), Texeira is the only league performer to record at least 40 runs, 50 RBI and 40 walks in the regular season. She led Conference USA with 50 RBI, finishing second with a .530 on-base percentage, 44 walks and tying for fourth with 48 runs. In league games only, Texeira was second in slugging (.855), on-base percentage (.532), RBI (21) and walks (19). She is the Conference USA all-time RBI leader (188) and is FIU's career leader in batting average (.407), slugging (.759), on-base (.543), runs (156), home runs (46), walks (141) and putouts (1,161). She is 47 hits, 11 doubles and five total bases from the FIU record for those categories, with at least two games to be played.
                 
After being selected to the second-team last season, sophomore Jackie Schoff (Brandon, Florida / Lakewood Ranch HS) earned First-Team All-C-USA honors in the outfield in 2017, the first outfielder to achieve the C-USA honor at FIU. Schoff broke the FIU single-season record with a .448 batting average this season, finishing second in Conference USA and sitting 10^th in the NCAA. She led C-USA in runs per game (1.11), also 10^th in the nation. Schoff is just behind Texeira in on-base percentage (.518), 27^th-highest in the country. She also finished fifth in hits (64) and stolen bases per game (0.53), both ranking in the 50s nationally. She missed 10 games this season due to injury and is still just one run away from tying the single-season school record, sitting with 50 runs scored so far, third-most in the league.
 
Senior Ashley Leon (Miami, Florida / Gulliver Prep) completes her college career with a Second-Team All-C-USA infielder spot. Leon led the league with 14 sacrifice bunts and finished 10^th in C-USA with 59 hits. She possesses FIU's third-highest career batting average (.372) and is tied for third with six triples, posting the fourth-best on-base percentage (.419) for a career. In C-USA games only, Leon was FIU's second-best batter by percentage (.375, 12-best in the league), stealing a team-best nine bases, tied for fifth-most by a C-USA student-athlete). She is one run, six hits, one RBI and five walks from a new season-high total in her very consistent senior campaign. In addition to sacrifice hits, she has a season high 18 stolen bases (and no times caught stealing for the first time in her career.) She missed only one game this season as FIU's everyday second baseman.
 
FIU earned the number-two seed by virtue of a 17-6 league record. The Panthers, at 43-12 overall, are one win away from tying the school mark for wins in a single season. FIU skips past the single-elimination day one of the tournament and starts double-elimination play on Thursday with a game at 5:30 Eastern against either Charlotte, North Texas or Louisiana Tech, teams the Panthers all faced, and posted a 7-1 mark against, in the regular season. A win advances FIU to semifinal Friday at 1 p.m. A loss forces FIU to have to win twice on Friday, starting at 3:30 p.m., to survive to the Saturday winner-take-all final at 1 p.m., televised on CBS Sports Network.

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About FIU Athletics: FIU Athletics is home to more than 400 student-athletes in 18 different sports. Athletic events are played in seven different venues on FIU's campuses (Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay), including Lime Court at FIU Arena and at Riccardo Silva Stadium.
 
About FIU: Florida International University is classified by Carnegie as a "R1: Doctoral Universities - Highest Research Activity" and recognized as a Carnegie Community Engaged university. It is a public research university with colleges and schools that offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in fields such as business, engineering, computer science, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida's anchor institutions, FIU contributes almost $9 billion each year to the local economy and is ranked second in Florida in Forbes Magazine's "America's Best Employers" list. FIU graduates are consistently among the highest paid college graduates in Florida and are among the leaders of public and private organizations throughout South Florida. FIU is Worlds Ahead in finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission with multiple state-of-the-art research facilities including the Wall of Wind Research and Testing Facility, FIU's Medina Aquarius Program and the Advanced Materials Engineering Research Institute.  FIU has awarded more than 220,000 degrees and enrolls more than 54,000 students in two campuses and centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell, FIU@I-75, the Miami Beach Urban Studios, and Tianjin, China. FIU also supports artistic and cultural engagement through its three museums: Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. FIU is a member of Conference USA and more than 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.