GEORGETOWN, TEXAS - Southwestern University first-year golfer Isabella Valenzuela, from League City, Texas, was named Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year for the 2022-2023 season. 

In her first collegiate start at the Alamo City Classic last October, Valenzuela fired a two-round score of 168 (88, 80) to earn her first top-25 finish at solo 24th. In her first start in the team lineup for Southwestern at the Space City Classic, Valenzuela shot 83, 87, to help her team to a third-place finish in a field of eight teams consistently mostly of SCAC opponents. 

Valenzuela again finished in the top 25 on the Pirate's home course at Berry Creek Country Club in the West Region Invitational. In her best finish of the year, she went on to card an 82, 88 ending at T21 for the tournament. Valenzuela posted an 86.45 scoring average in five tournaments and 11 rounds over the 2022-23 playing season.

Valenzuela is the second Southwestern woman to earn Freshman of the Year honors and the first since the Pirates' Leilani McDaniel earned the accolade following the 2016-17 season.