March 16, 2011
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Notre Dame senior Lauren Fowlkes (Lee’s Summit, Mo./St. Teresa’s Academy), who helped lead the Fighting Irish women’s soccer team to the third national championship in program history in 2010, has been awarded an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. Fowlkes was one of 29 female student-athletes that competed in a fall sport honored with the $7,500 scholarship.
Fowlkes is the fifth Fighting Irish women’s soccer player to be awarded the postgraduate scholarship and the 49th Notre Dame student-athlete overall since 1966. She joins Jen Renola (1997), Jenny Streiffer (2000), Vanessa Pruzinsky (2004) and Brittany Bock (2009) as the other former Notre Dame women’s soccer honorees.
The NCAA awards up to 174 postgraduate scholarships, 87 for men and 87 for women, annually. The scholarships are awarded to student-athletes who excel academically and athletically and who are in their final year of intercollegiate athletics competition. The one-time grants of $7,500 each are awarded for fall sports, winter sports and spring sports. Each sports season (fall, winter and spring), there are 29 scholarships available for men and 29 scholarships available for women. The scholarships are one-time, non-renewable grants.
Fowlkes was a co-captain on this year’s national championship unit and helped lead the Fighting Irish to a 21-2-2 mark as Notre Dame became the lowest seed (No. 4) ever to win the national title. Playing as both a central defender and a forward, Fowlkes ranked fourth on the team in goals (4) and points (13) and third in assists (5) this past season, while also serving as a major cog for a Fighting Irish defense that finished with a 0.51 goals-against average and 15 shutouts.
Fowlkes was a two-time National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) All-America selection in her career (third team in 2009 and second team in 2010), in addition to twice garnering Capital One Academic All-America honors (second team in 2009 and first team in 2010). She is one of only 13 student-athletes in Notre Dame athletics history (and the third Fighting Irish women’s soccer player) to couple athletic and academic All-America status in the same season on two different occasions.
A first-round draft pick (No. 5 overall) by the Philadelphia Independence in the 2010 Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) College Draft, Fowlkes is completing work on her bachelor’s degree in science-business from Notre Dame’s College of Science. She currently maintains a 3.619 cumulative grade-point average (GPA) and is a three-year member of the BIG EAST Academic All-Star Team (2008-10), in addition to having been a finalist for this year’s Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award (given annually to the nation’s top senior who blends academic and athletic excellence with distinction in the community).
Fowlkes has been a leader in service to others throughout her college career, participating with Habitat for Humanity and Christmas in April, as well as the LifeWorks Dream Teams. She also has made visits to various pediatric cancer units in the South Bend area, as well as taking part in soccer clinics for young children, and she has helped the Notre Dame women’s soccer program (and the athletics department) achieve 100-percent participation from all student-athletes.
— ND —