AU Names Athletes of the Year

AURORA, Ill. May 12, 2005 - The Aurora University Athletic Department named its 2004-2005 male and female Athlete of the Year at the annual Spartan Sports Spring Banquet on Tuesday, May 10, 2005. The awards, as voted on by members of the AU Athletic Department, were presented to a pair of local seniors, baseball outfielder Jay Lavender (Oswego, Ill./Oswego HS), and softball pitcher/first baseman Taylor Petersen (Aurora, Ill./West Aurora HS).

On hand to honor these two fine student-athletes were Aurora University Director of Athletics Mark Walsh, members of the spring sports teams, their family and friends, as well as head men’s baseball coach Shaun Neitzel and head women’s softball coach Mike McKenzie.

Coach McKenzie led the festivities by announcing the Female Athlete of the Year winner as senior women’s softball standout pitcher/first baseman Taylor Petersen. In her second and final year at AU, she was named Northern Illinois-Iowa Conference (NIIC) Player of the Year both seasons, led the Spartans to back-to-back NIIC championships, their first NCAA tournament appearance since the 1995 season, and Petersen rewrote the Spartan record book. She has established new marks in career strikeouts (422), career shutouts pitched (26), season strikeouts (246), season wins (25), and season shutouts (15), all while leading the Spartans to a school record 38 wins and a 38-4-1 overall record. In her final season as a Spartan, Petersen has a 25-0 record with a 0.18 earned run average (leads Division III), one save, one perfect game, 21 complete games, 15 shutouts, and 246 strikeouts in 159-1/3 innings pitched. She allowed only 10 walks and opponents hit .119 against her. At the plate, Petersen is hitting .406 with 12 doubles, two triples, four home runs, 22 runs batted in, and 39 runs scored. She has a .625 slugging percentage with a .438 on-base percentage.

Head Baseball Coach Shaun Neitzel followed with the Male Athlete of the Year presentation for senior baseball standout outfielder Jay Lavender. Lavender is a captain on the 31-7 Spartan baseball team, which enters NIIC tournament play this weekend ranked No 9 in the latest ABCA/Collegiate Baseball Division III poll. On the season, Lavender either leads or is second in all offensive categories. He is hitting .422 with 48 runs scored, 52 runs batted in, 16 doubles, three triples, eight home runs, 22 walks, a .735 slugging percentage, and is 9 of 11 in stealing bases. Lavender was a catalyst in the Spartans’ 2004 late-season run, which resulted in AU finishing in third place in the NCAA Division III Championships.

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