McLean County Times

NAPERVILLE, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University women's golf senior Lexi Onsrud (Normal, Ill.-University High) has been recognized as the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin Woman of the Year after a standout senior campaign. The league office made its announcement Friday morning, June 28.

The CCIW Women's Student-Athlete of the Year award honors senior women's athletes who have distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, service, and leadership. Honorees are nominated and voted upon by the CCIW's Senior Women Administrators and Faculty Athletics Representatives.

Onsrud becomes the 13th Titan to earn CCIW Woman of the Year distinction and is the first since Ellen Gilbert of IWU swim and dive received the honor in 2022. Onsrud is only the third IWU women's golfer to garner the award, joining Nicole Spear in 2009 and Lindsey Haines in 2010.

The Normal, Ill. native capped off her senior year with a perfect 4.0 grade-point average while majoring in kinesiology and allied health. Onsrud was named the NCAA Elite 90™ award winner in 2024 and recently accrued her third College Sports Communicators Academic All-District honor. A two-time CSC Academic All-America selection, Onsrud's resume also includes three CCIW Elite 26 awards, four CCIW All-Academic Team and IWU Dean's List selections, and she was named a Women's Golf Coaches Association Scholar All-American for three consecutive years.

After helping IWU to a record-breaking season, Onsrud garnered all-region honors for the third time in her career as she compiled an average score of 75.9 in 26.5 rounds over 11 tournaments for the season. Onsrud finished in the top 20 in eight of the 11 tournaments with four top-five finishes, including a third-place finish at the CCIW Championship to earn her third All-CCIW accolade. She finished off her collegiate career by posting the second-lowest 72-hole score at the NCAA Championship with a score of 301 to tie for 17th.

Onsrud is a four-time All-CCIW selection as she helped the Green and White to three conference championships in 2020, 2022, and 2023. She was the 2022 CCIW Championship medalist and garnered CCIW Golfer of the Week on five occasions during her illustrious career at IWU.

An all-around individual, Onsrud has been a Sunday School teacher at Eastview Christian Church since 2017 while also being a member of Encounter Ministries Bible Studies and a volunteer at Loaves & Fishes Soup Kitchen in Bloomington-Normal.

Onsrud's nomination will advance to the NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee, which is made up of representatives from NCAA membership. In fall, this committee chooses top honorees including ten from each division. From these thirty honorees, they determine nine finalists before announcing NCAA Woman of Year at January’s NCAA Convention.