INDIANAPOLIS – Drury University senior Jaime Villa Zapatero (Madrid, Spain/Moore (Okla.)) and Quincy University senior Torie Bunzell (Utica, Ill./LaSalle-Peru) have been selected to receive the 2011 Richard F. Scharf Paragon Awards.
The awards are bestowed annually by the Great Lakes Valley Conference to one male and one female athlete that display academic excellence, athletic ability and achievement, character and leadership. Zapatero and Bunzell will be presented the awards at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car GLVC Awards Banquet at the Drury Plaza Hotel at the Arch in St. Louis on May 24.
Zapatero, a cross country and track and field standout for the Panthers, maintained a 3.7 grade point average while garnering numerous athletic honors in his four years at Drury and became just the third cross country runner to win three individual conference titles.
He opened his career as the 2007 GLVC Freshman of the Year and finished sixth overall at the GLVC Championship that season. He was named the Drury Newcomer of the Year and received his first All-GLVC Cross Country honor.
Zapatero won his first GLVC Championship in 2008 as a sophomore and was named the GLVC Runner of the Year. He placed second overall at the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional and took home his first All-America honor at the NCAA National Championships by placing 20th overall.
As a junior, Zapatero won his second GLVC Championship, was again named the GLVC Runner of the Year and also helped the Panthers as they grew their budding track and field program. He was awarded All-GLVC First Team honors after taking home first-place in the 3,000-meter run at the 2010 GLVC Indoor Track & Field Championships and was a member of the Drury Distance Medley Relay team that also secured the top spot at the league meet.
At the 2010 GLVC Outdoor Track & Field Championships, Zapatero placed first in the 5,000-meter run to secure his first outdoor track and field medal.
Zapatero capped his brilliant athletic career by earning his second All-America honor at the 2010 NCAA Division II National Cross Country Championships in Louisville. He placed 16th overall at the national meet. Additionally, he was named the GLVC Runner of the Year for the third time after securing his third consecutive GLVC individual crown.
He also earned All-GLVC First Team honors for the second consecutive indoor track and field season by capturing first place in the 3,000-meter run and closed his conference career at the 2011 GLVC Outdoor Track & Field Championships with a second-place finish in the 5,000-meter run.
Zapatero, a Management, Marketing and Finance major, was the recipient of the 2011 Breech School of Business Administration Academic Excellence Award and was also awarded the Dr. Edsel Matthews Award which is given to the Drury student-athlete that best displays and combines academic and athletic achievements with leadership skills, character and citizenship.
He is a three-time GLVC Cross Country Scholar-Athlete of the Year recipient and is a four-time Academic All-GLVC honoree. Zapatero was a member of the Dean’s List each semester and is a Drury ambassador.
Additionally, Zapatero is a project leader for the Drury Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), the first student run program of its type in the country. He most recently was a part of the SIFE water purification program that helped provide fresh water in Istanbul, Turkey.
Zapatero is the third Drury student-athlete to be named as a GLVC Richard F. Scharf Paragon recipient and first male honoree from the institution.
Bunzell, a Sports Communication major at Quincy, will graduate as one of the most successful softball players in GLVC and NCAA Division II history. In four years as a pitcher for the Lady Hawks, Bunzell has become the school’s career leader in wins, striketous and shutouts and also holds the school’s single-game records for strikeouts and single-season records for strikeouts and shutouts.
She currently ranks second in NCAA Division II history in strikeouts in a career and season and became just the second pitcher in Division II history to reach 500 strikeouts in a season. She needs 22 more strikeouts to become the division’s career strikeout leader.
Bunzell became just the 10th collegiate pitcher to reach 1,500 career strikeouts and she tied the national record for strikeouts in a game with 23 in a win over Missouri S&T on Apr. 9. She will be the only pitcher in Division II history to have four seasons ranked in the top 20 of strikeout ratio and ranks in the top 20 all-time in shutouts.
Additionally, Bunzell has recorded 10 no-hitters and three perfect games in her storied career.
As a freshman, Bunzell was 16-6 overall with a 1.34 earned run average and 10 shutouts. She was named to the All-GLVC First Team and was tabbed as the GLVC Freshman of the Year. She earned Daktronics Second Team All-Region honors and recorded a league-best 282 strikeouts.
She posted a 23-13 record as a sophomore with a 1.18 ERA and notched 380 strikeouts, breaking her own school record for strikeouts in a season. She was selected All-GLVC First Team, NFCA and Daktronics First Team All-Region and Daktronics All-America honorable mention.
In 2010, Bunzell was 26-0 with a 0.99 ERA and tossed 12 shutouts, the second-most in a single season. She recorded 353 strikeouts and finished fourth nationally in both strikeouts and shutouts. Bunzell was tabbed the GLVC Pitcher of the Year after leading the league in all three major pitching categories and was named to the All-GLVC First Team and Daktronics and NFCA All-America Third Teams. Her efforts helped the Lady Hawks secure the team’s first berth to the NCAA Division II Tournament.
Bunzell repeated as GLVC Pitcher of the Year in 2011 and has paced the Lady Hawks to a runner-up finish in the GLVC Tournament and to a berth in the 2011 NCAA Midwest Regional. Currently, Bunzell is 29-11 with a 0.87 ERA and 500 strikeouts. She has allowed just 36 earned runs in 291 innings pitched this season and has posted 14 shutouts and 33 complete games.
In addition to the impressive softball statistics, Bunzell earned GLVC Academic All-Conference accolades in 2009 and 2010 and has been actively involved in the GLVC Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).
Bunzell has helped raise money for Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Special Olympics and has collected numerous items for local charities. She represented Quincy at the 2010 Character of Champions event in the fall and played a major role in the school’s first ‘Think Pink’ softball game as she helped plan and organize the event that raised money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
As a 2011 recipient, Bunzell becomes the second female Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award winner from Quincy, joining 2009 recipient Jessica Keller. She is the fourth Quincy student-athlete to be honored with the award overall.
The Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award was established prior to the 1990-91 season in honor of Richard F. Scharf, Commissioner Emeritus of the GLVC.