Spartan named ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-America
AURORA, Ill. -- Aurora University senior women's softball third baseman Dana Cebular (Brookfield, IL/Riverside-Brookfield H.S.) was named to the 2008 ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-America College Division Women's Softball First-Team.

Cebular, a First-Team All-America and First-Team All-District selection, graduated with Summa Cum Laude honors as an elementary education major and is a Gold Ivy Leaf recipient. In her final season as a Spartan, Cebular had a .510 batting average with 11 home runs, five triples, seven doubles, 44 runs batted in and 54 runs scored. She had a .850 slugging percentage with a .595 on-base percentage.

In addition to her excellence in the classroom, Cebular was a four-year standout on the softball field at AU. She was named Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) Player of the Year for the second consecutive season (2007 and 2008), a four-time NFCA All-Region player, four-time First-Team All-Conference selection (NAC and Northern Illinois-Iowa Conference), AU Female Athlete of the Year (2007 and 2008); she led the Spartans to four straight conference championships, three NCAA tournament appearances in the last four seasons and she rewrote the Spartan record book. She has established new marks in career home runs (38), doubles (46), hits (255), singles (154), at bats (601), runs batted in (159) and games played/started (184). She holds single season records in home runs (11 in 2005 and 2008), total bases (130 in 2007), runs scored (60 in 2007) and games played/started (49 in 2006), all while leading the Spartans to a 150-33-1 record in her four seasons.

AU's softball team finished the 2008 season with a 37-8 record and 23-1 in the NAC while capturing their fifth consecutive conference championship and the NCAA softball tournament appearance was the Spartans' third in the last four seasons.

To be considered for the ESPN the Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-America honor, the student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.20 on a scale of 4.00, have reached sophomore athletic and academic standings at his/her current institution and be nominated by his/her sports information director. Since the program's inception in 1952, CoSIDA has bestowed Academic All-America honors on more than 14,000 student-athletes in Divisions I, II, III and NAIA covering all NCAA championship sports.

Courtesy of Concordia University Chicago, Sports Information Department, May 28, 2008.