PORTALES, N.M. – Eastern New Mexico Softball had three members receive Academic All-District® Honors from the College Sports Communicators (CSC), on Tuesday afternoon. Seniors Taighen Whitzel and Aylene Lucero, and junior Grace Rofii all received the accolade. Lucero receives the honor for the second year in a row, while Rofii and Whitzel are first time honorees.

Lucero earns their second career CSC honor, also being named to the LSC Commissioner's Honor Roll five times.  This past season, the Albuquerque, N.M. native batted .275 in 47 games with 36 starts in the outfield. The physical education major had 11 multi-hit games while scoring 28 runs in 2024 (4^th most on team) and was second on the team with 12 stolen bases.

Earning the accolade for the first time, Whitzel completes the season with Academic All-District Recognition after being named First Team All-LSC and to the 2024 TUCCI/NFCA Player and Pitcher of the Year Watchlist. Playing designated player for the Greyhounds, Whitzel played all 52 games with a .375 batting average with a team high 60 hits and 26 walks. The biology major has also earned LSC Commissioner's Honor Roll accolades three times.

Rofii rounds out the trio, joining the Greyhounds for the 2024 season from College of San Mateo. Playing in 48 games during the season, Rofii started the Greyhounds final 29 games of the season (mostly playing first base). A communications major, Rofii batted .346 for ENMU finishing with 36 hits and 12 RBIs. In their first semester with ENMU, Rofii was named to the LSC Commissioner's Honor Roll in the fall of 2023.

In order to be considered for the CoSIDA Academic All-America program, a student-athlete must have played 90% of the team's games or start in 66.6% of the team's games with at least a 3.50 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) at his/her current institution.