Samantha Heyer named winner of 2024 Dr. Charlotte West Scholar-Athlete Award
6/12/2024 9:00:00 AM | Softball
Panther pitcher also becomes MVC’s nominee for NCAA Woman of the Year.
ST. LOUIS --- UNI softball pitcher Samantha Heyer has been named the female recipient of the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Dr. Charlotte West Scholar-Athlete Award, as announced by the league office on Wednesday.
Established in 2000, the award is among the most prestigious honors in the MVC with each league institution nominating one male and one female student-athlete. These nominees are extraordinary student-athletes excelling academically and athletically and are leaders on campus and within their communities.Â
By virtue of receiving this honor, Heyer will also serve as the conference's nominee for the NCAA Woman of the Year award, which will be announced at the upcoming NCAA Convention in Nashville, Tennessee in January 2025.
A Charles City, Iowa native, Heyer becomes the seventh Panther student-athlete to receive the honor and fourth female to do so. Previous winners from UNI include Matt Cobb (2000, baseball), Jill Arganbright (2004, volleyball), Jacqui Kalin (2011, women's basketball), Adam McDonnell (2014, men's track and field), Angie Davison (2017, women's basketball) and CJ May (2020, men's track and field).
This year's male recipient of the award is Missouri State men's soccer player Kian Yari.
During her senior season with the Panther softball team, Heyer compiled a pitching record of 18-6 along with two saves in 152 innings of work with 198 strikeouts and a 2.12 earned run average (ERA) while starting a league-high 30 games. A First Team All-MVC selection and three-time conference pitcher of the week, Heyer pitched six shutout victories for the purple and gold in 2024 and averaged 9.3 strikeouts per seven innings, fourth-most in a single-season in program history.
Graduating this semester with degrees in biology and gerontology and a minor in chemistry with a 3.96 GPA, Heyer was named the MVC's Elite 17 Award winner for 2024, given to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating in the conference tournament's championship game. She earned her second career College Sports Communicators (formerly CoSIDA) Academic All-District honor this season, was named one of six recipients of the UNI's 2024 Servant Leader Award. Â
Notably, Heyer collaborated on a research article (second author) published in Frontiers of Microbiology in spring 2024 and she earned a 2023-2024 Gerontology LifeCare Services Scholarship for Outstanding Academic Achievement and Service. She also presented research at the Iowa state capitol in March of 2024 and has been an active volunteer in the healthcare industry in her community.Â
Heyer concluded her career as one of UNI softball's most decorated and accomplished pitchers, holding opposing batters to a program record .207 average over the course of her five seasons. She also ranks second in school history in career wins (55), saves (6), appearances (122) and strikeouts (682).
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ABOUT DR. CHARLOTTE WEST
The first-ever recipient of the Honda Award of Merit in 1996 for outstanding achievement in women's collegiate athletics, Dr. Charlotte West was a driving force for more than 40 years in the area of advancement of women's sports.
On June 30, 1998, she retired from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, after serving in the capacities of head coach, associate athletics director, interim athletics director and senior woman administrator during her 41 years with the MVC-member institution. West coached five women's sports from 1957-75 and, in 1982, was among the first group of women inducted into the SIUC Athletics Hall of Fame.
During her tenure at SIUC, she became the first female member of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) and later served on the organization's board of directors. West was also a president of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). In 1991, she was presented with the Administrator of the Year Award by the National Association of Collegiate Women Administrators. West also received the Administrator of the Year Award, given by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association.
