The Crusaders - who won the 2008 WHAC Regular Season Championship - nabbed two out of three  major postseason awards as freshman pitcher Jess Irwin was named the 2008 WHAC Pitcher of the Year and head coach Al White was named WHAC Coach of the Year.  Junior outfielder Ashley Aspinall of Aquinas College was selected the 2008 WHAC Player of the Year.

Conference runner-up Aquinas notched three first-teamers as did Cornerstone University.  Michigan-Dearborn saw a pair of player earn first team honors as did Siena Heights.

Irwin, the Crusaders' right-handed pitcher, overpowered hitters in her freshman campaign as she led the WHAC in wins (19), strikeouts (213) and ERA (1.20) and set numerous Madonna school records while tossing a pair of no-hitters this season.  Irwin held opponents to a mere .170 batting average in 151.1 innings of work.
 

Aspinall was helped lead Aquinas to a second place conference finish, hitting .440 (44-for-100) on the season with 11 doubles, a triple and four home runs.  Aspinall has also knoced in 38 runs with a .496 on-base percentage and made just one error in 35 chances in the field.
 

White wins his fourth WHAC Coach of the Year award for the Crusaders, who captured their sixth WHAC title this season.  He led the Crusaders to a 20-4 conference record and has guided the squad to a 32-12-1 overall mark.  Madonna currently holds the second spot in the NAIA Region VIII rankings and are the top seed in the WHAC Tournament as they vie for the top WHAC seed in next week's Region VIII Championship.   
 

The WHAC coaches also named a player from each team as the Champions of Character representative, higlighted by Coach of Character Robin Santiago of Concordia.  The WHAC Champions of Character team selections were; Katie Faucher (Aquinas), Kristine Dolunt (Concordia), Jill Peterson (Cornerstone), Jessica Shaffer (Indiana Tech), Stephanie Miller (UM-Dearborn), Cat Sidor (Madonna) and Mariah Welke (Siena Heights).

VIEW COMPLETE ALL-CONFERENCE TEAMS  (PDF)