Junior track and fielder Jenna Prandini was announced the winner of the Honda Sports Award by Chris Voelz, Executive Director of The Collegiate Women Sports Awards (CWSA) on June 18th.

Prandini becomes a finalist for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year after winning the Honda Sports Award. The Honda Sports Award is presented annually by the CWSA to the top women athletes in 12 NCAA sanctioned sports.

Prandini was selected by over 1,000 NCAA member school administrators. Kendra Harrison (Kentucky), Akela Jones (Kansas State) and Demi Payne (Stephen F. Austin) were also finalist for this award.

“All of the women nominated are really great athletes so to win this award is an honor,” Jenna Prandini told goducks.com. “I want to thank my coaches and teammates who have helped and supported me all season long.”

During the 2015 NCAA Championship, Prandini racked up 49 points. She scored more than any other women in the meet.

Prandini won the 100 meters and was a runner up in the 200 meter and in the long jump at the NCAA Outdoor Championship racking up 26 points.  In the indoor championship she won the long jump national title, finished runner-up at the 200 meters. Prandini finished fourth at the 60 meterss for 23 points.

“Jenna is an outstanding student-athlete on and off the track and is very deserving of this award after leading our team to a national championship,” Oregon track coach Robert Johnson told goducks.com. “What she was able to accomplish this season was absolutely amazing and all of us here at the University of Oregon are extremely proud.”

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Kristen Shafer went to fencing practice in blue jeans and a rain coat.

Shafer’s passion for fencing was spurred watching the Summer Olympics as a little girl. She wanted to try fencing in high school, but going to school in the small town of Butte Falls, Oregon, didn’t offer it.

Shafer faced another obstacle in her pursuit of fencing. She has issues with her iliotibial band, a tendon that runs up the thigh and connects to the hip. This didn’t stop her from fencing during her first year of college.

Shafer didn’t realize how much jerky movement fencing required once she joined.

“I can’t lunge in fencing or else I collapse,” Shafer said. “I think that’s what further injured my knee.”

Shafer was forced to take her second year off. During that year off, Shafer stayed involved with the club as a coordinator. She would stay in contact with the club sports administrators and perform behind the scenes tasks.

After spending the year behind the scenes, Shafer said she misses the spotlight from her first year.

“It’s been a really rough ride, and it’s been kind of heartbreaking watching everyone having a great time,” Shafer said. “I’m just sitting there saying ‘I can’t do this.’”

Shafer has been given the clear to fence in the fall and said she is ready to return to action.

“I’m pretty pumped about it because I have not been able to fence or run or do anything that I love,” Shafer said. “It’s been a goal.”

Freshman Alex Wyckoff has been eager for Shafer to return.

“Alex has been asking me every single practice, ‘Can you fence? Are you okay to fence?” Shafer said.

The fencing club is seeing low participation numbers as they finish the 2014 season.

Head coach Adam Lake said the fencing community in the Pacific Northwest is strong in the Portland and Seattle area, but not in Eugene.

For the first time in the fencing club’s history, it did not attend any tournaments. The club was about to go to their first competition of the year when Lake became ill.

When Shafer first arrived in Eugene, the fencing club immediately caught her attention. She walked by the room and saw all of the participants in full gear.

“I thought it was really neat,” Shafer said. “I figured that this was a really good environment and a very tight knit family that made me feel very welcome.”

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Oregon’s club swimming team competed in the nationals on April 24th-26th this season in San Antonio, Texas. Senior Lindsay Miller, sophomore Emily Collins and freshman Maddy Griffin were the top performers.

Before competing in nationals, Miller was sick. She was throwing up and coughing. She didn’t know if she would be able to compete in nationals.

“Honestly going into (nationals) I didn’t think I was going to do well,” Miller said, “and I was still able to go from lifetime best at nationals.”

Along with Miller, who finished top- 10 in six events including a 4th place finish in the 50 yard breaststroke. Collins placed top 10 in two events including a 9th place finish in the 100 yard backstroke. Griffin finished top 10 in two of her events including a 7th place in the 200 yard breaststroke.

Before attending the University of Oregon, Miller use to swim in division 2 at California State University, East Bay. During her time there, she would train for 25 hours a week and saw no improvement. She started to feel burnt out but once she transferred over during fall term 2012, this team changed her mind about swimming.

“Honestly this has been the best team I’ve been on at University of Oregon,” Miller said. “When we go swimming, we really bond and I’m really gonna miss that because I’m graduating in June.”

This will be the last season for both Miller and Collins, as Miller is set to graduate and Collins is set to transfer to Sacramento State to be closer to home. This will leave Griffin as the only top performer from nationals heading into the 2015 season. Griffin was also able to compete in nationals through some adversity.

“I think I could have done better if I hadn’t broken my ankle,” Griffin said. “I didn’t do horribly, I was only a couple seconds under my best times so I think I performed decently.”

Collins wasn’t completely satisfied with her performance during nationals as she was about two to three seconds off from matching her personal best time in all of her events.

Collins prepared for meets by eating a lot of carbohydrates like pasta every night for dinner leading up to the meet. For nationals, she ate a family sized lasagna every night leading up to nationals.

Griffin describes her preparation for meets as “turning into a slow for a week.” Griffin would get as much sleep as she could. She also waits for a long time before shaving her legs and arms for the night before a meet.

Before nationals, the team competes in five meets. Miller would prepare for nationals by swimming in all five of those meets.

“We are just trying to have people swim as much as they could,” Miller said. “Get a feel for how well they are doing and go to nationals and see what they are capable of.”

The preparation for all three swimmers would make their trip to nationals the most memorable of the season.

“There were 11 of us that flew down and for 4 days we all got to really know each other a lot more and spend more time with each other in the pool,” Miller said.

For Griffin, bonding with the team was what made nationals special for her.

“That was the point where we all got really close, was at nationals and watching mean girls, that was fun,” Griffin said.

For Collins, she appreciate the laid back atmosphere that the club created during intense times. Through swimming, she has made a plethora of friends in both Oregon and California.

“I’m going to miss Monday dinners at Qdoba and Thursday night Jenga,” Collins said. “Just being apart of a team and having such close friends I can always count on.”

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Jasmine Todd, a redshirt sophomore out of Chandler, Ariz. has been awarded  Pac-12 field Athlete of the Year. Todd helped the Ducks win the women’s Pac-12 Track and Field Championship at Drake Stadium, home of the UCLA Bruins.

Todd racked up 35 of the team’s winning 185 points, a three point win margin over the USC Trojans.

Todd and Sasha Wallace were the top athletes to get points for women of Oregon. Todd scored in her five events while winning two individual titles.

Todd won the 100 meter and triple jump while she placed second place in the long jump and fourth in the 200 meter. She also got UO in second place in the 4×100 relays.A race where the Ducks needed to place at least fourth or better in order to contend for the conference championship.

Todd ranks third in the country in the 100m and 17th in the triple jump. Todd played an important role for the team as she stepped in for fellow teammate Jenna Prandini. She scratched from the championships during the morning of the first day. Prandini is ranked first in the nation in the 100 and 200.

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Former Oregon defensive back, Issac Dixon, was arrested Saturday morning by the Eugene Police, according to The Register Guard.

Dixon, 23, is facing a fourth-degree assault charge, after being involved in a physical altercation with his girlfriend at an apartment at the Chase Village complex. Dixon is currently in Lane County jail.

Melinda McLaughlin, Department spokeswoman, told The Register Guard that a verbal dispute between Dixon and his 21-year-old girlfriend led to the altercation.

Dixon played defensive back for the Ducks for four years and intended to transfer to another school once his degree was complete. Dixon played two games during the 2014 season.

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On April 22nd, Caroline Inglis became Oregon’s first Pac-12 individual champion.

The junior Eugene native scored a 4- under 67 in the final round of the Pac-12 Championship in the Boulder Country Club in Colorado.

Recently, Inglis spoke with the Emerald’s Keoni Conlu about her year.

Who do you attribute your work ethic and focus to?

I think definitely my parents because how they raised me. Then coming into (University of) Oregon and being on a team where I do have a support system that’s going to hold me accountable to get out there and practice and to push myself that’s also really important as well i think.

How would you describe this year?

I think for the team it was a pretty normal season, for at least the record books. I mean we did well at Pac-12s, we got second, and we won two tournaments. It was awesome to be apart of and it was a bummer to have it end on the note that we did in San Antonio, to not make it by 3 shots. So I think that we had a good year but kinda left us hungry for more next year: just wanting to make it to the national championship for sure. Then for me, it was a really good year. I got my first win and that was awesome. I finished in top 5 in quite a few events and I just felt like I gained a lot this year.

How was preparing for the Pac-12 championship different from your preparation for other tournaments?

Honestly I don’t think there’s much difference. It’s still a golf tournament, I go into every tournament the same level of focus and level of preparation. Maybe in the back of our heads we are like “oh it’s Pac-12” but I think it’s less the same, you tailor your practice to what the golf course will be like.

What was your mindset heading into the tournament?

We had one of the aimpoint guys. He flew in and we did aimpoint right before we left so it was really good to get a refresher on that. Then we kind of knew the style of course it was so I just practiced a lot of basic chips around the green that I didn’t normally have, shots from the rough, and then I think once we got there it was really finding the particulars that are important because the altitude is so much higher. Before we got there we went on track van at the Eugene Country Club and we adjusted the alititude so we figured out our distances like how far each club is going even before we even got there so that was pretty cool.

How does it feel to be the first individual Pac-12 champion in the state of Oregon?

It felt great. It was really cool. I mean it was an honor, it was such a great tournament, such a great experience, I don’t know how to put it into words. It was really special week for me.

What did this award mean to you, the team, and the state of Oregon golf?

For me, I think it gave me confidence in my game and I know I can compete with a high level. I think for the team, hopefully it’s inspirational for them to work harder and want to accomplish something similar, fire them up and fuel their work ethic. For Oregon women’s golf it’s a big step especially the second place finish, I know we can improve alot but it’s a step in the right direction.

– Oregon softball defeated BYU 8-0 Thursday. The Ducks, led by Koral Costa and Nikki Udria, pounded out 11 hits and stole two bases in the victory.

–Oregon track and field will travel to Los Angeles to partake in the Pac-12 Track and Field Championships on UCLA’s campus. The meet begins on Saturday and will conclude Sunday.

Oregon is facing the added pressure of once again sweeping the affair, something they have been able to do for the past six years. “I think we are pretty used to having a target on our back,” Oregon redshirt senior Will Geoghegan said.

– Cheridan Hawkins was named to the Pac-12 first team. Jenna Lilley was named Pac-12 first team and as a true freshman, joined the Pac-12 freshmen team.

Hawkins recorded 224 strikeouts in just 165.2 innings thrown, while holding opponents to a .140 batting average.

Lilley batted .448 on the year and posted a .550 on-base percentage, ranking her second in the Pac-12 in both categories

– Oregon’s baseball team won 2-1  against the Gonzaga Bulldogs Wednesday. 

Oregon (31-22) turned three clean double-plays and stranded six Gonzaga (23-26) baserunners in the process.

– Josh Seligsohn is heading to the 2015 USA Weightlifting National University Championships.

Seligsohn sat down with the Emerald’s Ryan Kostecka for a Q& A

– Former women’s Oregon basketball player Tatum Neubert is transferring to the Louisiana State University to continue her basketball career.

Neubert played her freshman year with UO this past season. Neubert scored 3.5 points and 2.4 rebounds per game during 11 non-conference games and playing a total of 23 games.

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On April 20, the Oregon’s men’s tennis program announced that Thomas Laurent, a junior player recruit out of Montpellier, France, will be joining the team for the 2015-2016 school year.

Out of the 10 total roster spots, four of those spots currently belong to international players. The four international players on the team have traveled a total of 19,598 miles to play collegiate tennis at the University of Oregon.

Coach Nils Schyllander and his coaching staff have a simple philosophy when it comes to recruiting. “I am pretty personable with recruits and we try to be honest and upfront on what to expect,” he said.

Schyllander’s honesty landed him recruits from as far as Charleroi, Belgium (Simon Stevens, freshman) and New South Wales, Australia (Cormac Clissold, freshman).

Schyllander told Clissold that if he chose the UO, he would train day in and day out with some of the best tennis players in the world.

“The University of Oregon gives me the best chance to play college tennis and try to create a career,” Clissold said.

For Stevens, it was more of what Schyllander did than what he said.

“Everyone told me to go to Oregon and that I would like the coach,” Stevens said. “Then (Schyllander) came to Belgium and it was great. It was great for my parents and it showed that they can trust him.”

Schyllander discovers these international players by following tournaments from all over the world. The coaching staff then follows the results of the tournaments and examines who the best players are. Schyllander remains in contact with coaches from across the globe; they talk about the best up- and-coming international prospects.

Also, being of foreign descent has helped Schyllander and his coaching staff in recruiting.

“We (Schyllander and associate head coach Jonas Piibor) have gone through the same thing these international student athletes are going through,” Schyllander said.

Schyllander likes to go for quality people and quality student athletes regardless of where they are from.

“Everyday you get better with the coaches and also your teammates,” Stevens said. “You get a lot of support during your matches or practices.”

With the team being so diverse, they have found a way to build solid chemistry.

“The locker room is really great and makes for a lot of different personalities from different parts of the world,” Schyllander said.

Laurent will have an easy time dealing with being home sick once he arrives in Eugene. Schyllander believes that no matter how far you’re away from home feeling homesick is natural.

“That’s where it really helps to have a great locker room where people do feel at home and this truly is a family away from family,” Schyllander said. “That’s kind of the atmosphere we want to have.”

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Oregon’s women’s golf team made history Saturday. The team scored its lowest two-under for 286 in the third round, giving them a tournament total one over for 865. This was the best performance for the Ducks in the NCAA Regionals by 20 strokes. The previous record was set in both the 1993 and 1997 season.

The team placed eighth and did not qualify for the NCAA Championships. Sophomore golfer Cathleen Santoso led the team by placing 23rd with a score of 216 (74-71-71). In the final round she landed a score of one under for 71. Santoso’s score of 216 is her fourth lowest individual score in school history at regionals.

Caroline Inglis finished her season with a 72.31 scoring average, which is the lowest single season scoring average in school history.

Sophomore Marcella Pranovia came up huge for the Ducks as she ended the tournameant with a four-under 68. This marks the lowest score for her career. Pranovia played a clean front nine with eight pars and one birdie. She then came out of the gate with a three-under for 33 and an eagle with two more birdies.

“Three rounds under par and a career-low round from Marcella was extremely solid today. It was a great season as a whole – and our finish this week certainly was not indicative of how successful it was.” Head coach Ria Scott told goducks.com.

The Ducks experienced an exciting finish as they battled for the sixth and the final qualifying spot.

Inglis started the fun as she hit a hole-in-one on the 153-yard par-3 15th. This is the fifth time the Eugene native has had a hole-in-one.

Pair that with Pranovia’s career setting day included a four-under in the final six holes. Pranovia hit an eagle the par-five 13th then birdied No. 14 and 17 (chipped on No.17). This all equated to the lowest round of the day for the Ducks.

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It’s rare to find Wushu in Oregon. When Daniel Wu started the club in 1994, he became the team’s first coach while trying to spread awareness about the sport. Wu is now in movies in Hollywood, but his club is still going strong.

The Oregon Wushu club is now player-led and coached less as it tries to grow off the experiences of its coordinators and captains. Despite everyone practicing and choreographing the competition together, the sport is very individual-driven. Club members compete against Pac-12 schools such as UCLA, Stanford and Cal. The experienced members of Wushu have found a way to ease the stress as they go from year to year.

“This year I was really scared, but I talked to some people and they told me that I shouldn’t think of it as competition,” Elirissa Hui, the club treasurer and coordinator said.

Hui’s mindset has gone from a negative one, worrying about forgetting a portion of the choreography for example, to thinking of it as practicing with new people.

“Competitions are the best way for me to see what I need to work on,” said Kasey Sullivan, a beginner with the Wushu club.

Sullivan took advice she received at the competitions and was able to improve during the second competition of the year.

Wing Ng is the captain and coach for the club. He doesn’t just want to see his teammates do well, but puts a lot of emphasis on sportsmanship.

“It’s not expecting to really win or lose but just to learn and see different styles and see how people are doing and how they are training to make themselves better,” Ng said.

Ng has seen other personal benefits from Wushu.

“I like to think I am a bit more athletic than I was my freshman year,” Ng said. “A lot of people, when they see videos of me my freshman year, they can see the physical difference between then and now.”

Wushu has helped Hui’s confidence level. She has been playing the sport for seven to eight years while being involved with the UO’s club for two years.

“Being in Wushu helped me get out of my shell once I got into college because it is pretty intimidating being in such a big place where you don’t know very many people,” Hui said.

Hui appreciates Wushu for giving her a social group and an extracurricular activity.

“Before I joined the club, I was kind of lost and didn’t have anyone to talk to on campus so it gives me a community to be in,” Sullivan said.

Ng believes that this is a good club because of the community that surrounds the sport. Despite being small, they are a close knit group of people.

“We know people from like New York and everything and it’s really cool to see so many people who love the same sport,” Hui said.

Ng remembers when he met a 60-year-old who was jumping around and doing moves that he and the group couldn’t do.

“He was asking us, ‘Oh are you okay? Are you tired?’ and all of us were out of breath and he was just sweating a little.”

“I honestly wouldn’t know what I would be doing this year if I wasn’t in Wushu,” Sullivan said.

Follow Keoni Conlu on Twitter @kconlu13