Williams Named CoSIDA First Team Academic All-American

AMES, Iowa – Iowa State senior Sami Williams was named a 2020 CoSIDA First Team Academic All-American on Thursday, as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America. Williams becomes just the fifth softball student-athlete in Big 12 history to be a three-time CoSIDA Academic All-American, and is the first-ever Cyclone to do so.

Williams, who is the lone Big 12 honoree on the first team, earned second team honors in 2019 and third team honors in 2018. She maintained a 3.96 GPA in Iowa State's software engineering program, and was also an Academic All-Big 12 First Team honoree. She is the fourth Cyclone softball player ever to be named a first team member by CoSIDA. Williams is one of three softball student-athletes in the nation to earn her third career CoSIDA Academic All-America honor in 2020. She is also just the third three-time CoSIDA Academic All-American in Iowa State athletics history. She joins Iowa State baseball's Mike Gillespie (1970-72) and former women's track/cross country standout Lisa Koll (2008-10) in that exclusive club.

On the field, Williams is Iowa State's all-time leader in hits (250), doubles (64) and home runs (46), and was named an Honorable Mention All-American in 2019. She is also the NCAA DI active leader in doubles. Williams announced in April that she would be returning for an additional season of eligibility in 2021, due to the cancellation of the NCAA softball season caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Iowa State is the only softball program in the Big 12 to have a CoSIDA Academic All-American each of the past three years, totaling four honorees in the time span.

For more information about CoSIDA's Google Cloud Academic All-District and Academic All-America Teams program, visit AcademicAllAmerica.com or the Academic All-America® homepage on CoSIDA.com.