INDIANAPOLIS – Two back-to-back national players of the year, Drury University basketball senior Hailey Diestelkamp and University of Indianapolis senior golfer Pilar Echeverria, have tied for the Great Lakes Valley Conference Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award as the league’s female athlete of the year, the Conference office announced Wednesday.
The awards are bestowed annually by the GLVC to one male and one female student-athlete that display academic excellence, athletic ability and achievement, character, and leadership. It is named in honor of former GLVC Commissioner, as well as, coach and director of athletics at Saint Joseph's College. This year, for the second time in league history, there was a tie in voting for the women’s award. Conversely, for the first time in the Conference annals, there was also a tie in voting for the men’s award, and those co-winners were announced yesterday, May 19.
Under normal circumstances, these two would have been formally recognized this week at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car GLVC Awards Banquet at the Drury Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri, but, with the cancellation of the league’s in-person reception due to COVID-19, the GLVC will work with Drury and UIndy to present the awards to both honorees.
Diestelkamp ended her career as one of Drury’s most decorated women’s basketball players, becoming the third Panther to be named the top student-athlete in the league. Her former coach, Molly Miller, earned the recognition during the 2007-08 academic year, while fellow basketball standout Amanda Newton was the honoree for 2005-06. The senior started her career with a GLVC Freshman of the Year award, an All-GLVC second-team nod, and Division II Bulletin All-Freshman team recognition in 2016-17. She followed that up in her sophomore campaign by being named to the All-GLVC First Team, the GLVC All-Tournament Team as the Most Outstanding Player, and the NCAA All-Midwest Region squad, all of which she earned twice more as a junior and then a senior. Both as a sophomore and junior, Diestelkamp earned NCAA Midwest Region All-Tournament Team honors and was the Regional Tournament MVP as a junior, while she was named an All-American and WBCA D-II National Player of the Year in the latter season. The forward repeated her National Player of the Year distinction this past season, defending her WBCA award and adding the D2 CCA Ron Lenz National Player of the Year nod – and D2 CCA Midwest Region Player of the Year – additionally being voted the GLVC Player of the Year. It’s no wonder the Owensville, Missouri, product has a full trophy cabinet with statistics like ending her career as the NCAA D-II’s active career leader in scoring, field goal attempts and field goals made while being 24th all-time in scoring. She also became just the sixth player in NCAA D-II history to record more than 2,300 career points and 1,100 career rebounds. She is the first player in Panthers program history to top 2,000 career points and first-ever to surpass 1,000 career boards, and she additionally tallied a Drury and GLVC single-game scoring record with 53 points against Rockhurst on February 29.
The captain helped Drury to a 128-8 overall record that included a perfect 32-0 clip this season, along with a 72-2 GLVC record with back-to-back undefeated seasons at 18-0 and 20-0 respectively during her junior and senior campaigns. She was a two-time GLVC West Division Champion and back-to-back Regular Season champion, winning all four GLVC Tournament titles in her career. Furthermore, she was part of the 2018-19 squad that advanced to the NCAA Semifinals and the 2019-20 team that ranked No. 1 in both the country and region and was set to host the NCAA Midwest Regional before COVID-19 caused the postseason event to be suspended.
The Psychology major accumulated a 3.4 overall GPA, garnering back-to-back CoSIDA Academic All-District honors in 2019 and 2020, just recently nabbing a spot on the 2020 CoSIDA Academic All-America squad. Last year, she was an Academic All-GLVC pick and is on track to repeat as such this year.
Outside of the classroom and the gym, Diestelkamp served the entire Conference by participating in two PSA video campaigns. She shared her personal story in the “GLVC is Me” promotional piece and helped fellow students with mental health awareness in the “Someone to Listen” series. Moreover, she also interned at a clinic for troubled and homeless teenagers during her time as a Panther.
Echeverria notches the fifth Paragon award for UIndy and is the third golfer selected, as Annika Haynes was chosen most recently in 20017-18 and Jenny Konop was the 2013-14 selection. Echeverria will have her name in the Greyhounds’ and Conference record book for a lifetime as a league-best 16-time GLVC Player of the Week, the first-ever four-time GLVC Player of the Year, four-time All-GLVC, four-time All-East Region, and four-time WGCA All-American, as well as, a two-time WGCA Division II Player of the Year. Not only does she boast copious postseason accolades, the senior broke multiple school records all four years of her career that includes a school-best 16 individual tournament titles; one of which was the 2018-19 GLVC crown and all three NCAA East Regionals in which she competed. Echeverria set a school record for lowest single-season scoring average (74.07) as a freshman before going even lower as a sophomore (73.19), junior (72.49), and senior (71.56). Those combined averages helped her set a program-record 72.96 career clip. Last season, she set a new record for 54-hole scoring (209, -7) and did the same with her 36-hole score of nine-under 135 this season. Those individual efforts aided the team to 28 tournament titles, including three GLVC trophies, two NCAA East Regional crowns and one runner-up finish, two third-place finishes at the NCAA Championship, and the coveted 2017-18 National title.
During her four-year tenure, the Guatemala City, Guatemala, native also excelled in the classroom at UIndy, finishing with a 3.31 overall GPA while studying Industrial Systems & Engineering. In 2017, she earned WGCA All-American Scholar and Academic All-GLVC laurels, while she also balanced her time by serving the community and Conference. Like Diestelkamp, Echeverria participated in both the “GLVC is Me” and “Someone to Listen” PSA campaigns, sharing her personal story and being a voice on campus for mental health awareness. The team captain also volunteered all four years with the Indiana Special Olympics and made multiple visits to patients at Riley Children’s Hospital. Additionally, she participated in Food Recollection at UIndy and assisted during the 2019 Night to Shine, which is a program that provides a prom experience for special needs individuals aged 14 and older.