The 2025 Northeast Conference Gold Glove winner for softball has scooped up her fifth honor from the NEC since the start of May. Saint Francis 2025 graduate Olivia Ulam (Canonsburg, Pa./Canonsburg) was named the Northeast Conference (NEC) Female Team Student-Athlete of the Year, NEC Gold Glover, All-NEC first-team, and NEC All-Tournament team and just added NEC Co-Scholar-Athlete of the Year for softball to list of honors.
The NEC Co-Scholar-Athlete of the Year has found a home at the Red Flash Softball Field for a record fifth year in a row. Ulam follows in the footsteps of former teammates Mekenzie Saban (2021, 2022) and Rachel Marsden (2023, 2024) as Red Flash winners of the award. Just like Ulam in 2025, Marsden was a co-winner in 2023. Along with the trio having the connection of winning the prize, donning the red and black, all three hail in the Pittsburgh region, with Saban coming from Pittsburgh, Marsden coming from two hours north of the steel city in Erie, and Ulam from Canonsburg, 20 miles southwest of Pittsburgh.
The second four-time All-NEC first-team performer in only four years of eligibility, Ulam was named the 2025 NEC Gold Glove winner. Ulam, who batted .300 (3-for-10) with six RBIs, two homers, and six RBIs in the NEC Tournament, gave the Red Flash the lead for good in two of the three NEC Tournament games and was named to the NEC All-Tournament team for the second time in her career. Ranked as the No. 14 First Basemen in D1Softball Player Position Rankings in 2025, she ranked in the Top-10 in nine offensive categories in the league: batting average (.342, sixth in NEC), hits (53, third in NEC), runs scored (33, sixth in NEC), doubles (15 led NEC), homers (6, eighth in NEC), RBIs (34, seventh in NEC), total bases (88, third in NEC), slugging percentage (.555, eighth in NEC) and OPS (.954, ninth in NEC). In addition, she holds the top marks for putouts in a season (450, 2022; 423, 2024) and the fifth most doubles in a single season (19, 2024). Ulam was named the NEC Player of the Week five times (2024, five times) and an NEC Prime Performer 13 times (2025, one time; 2024, seven times; 2023, two times; 2022, three times). She continued the tradition that she came in with the program, helping the Red Flash to three NEC Tournament titles and NCAA Regional appearances (2022, 2024, 2025) and three NEC regular season titles (2022. 2023, 2024).
Softball becomes the first Red Flash sport to win five scholar-athletes of the year in a row. Both men's outdoor track and field (2004-07) and women's indoor track and field (2007-10) ran four consecutive honors. The five scholar-athletes for softball rank fifth-most in school history behind men's outdoor track and field (nine), men's golf (seven), men's soccer (seven), women's basketball (six), while men's cross country (five), men's indoor track and field (five), women's outdoor track and field (five) and women's soccer (five) are also a member of the club with five players earning the recognition.
Saint Francis has a longstanding excellence with the Scholar-Athlete of the Award, earning at least one honor every year since the inception of the award in 2003-04 and an NEC record of 84 honors. Along with Deardorff, softball's Olivia Ulam (Canonsburg, Pa./Canonsburg) earned recognition in the spring, and field hockey player Dolores Zavaleta (San Juan, Argentina) and women's volleyball player Korrin Burns (Clarion, Pa.) received NEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year recognition for their sports.  It marks the 12th time in the 22 years the NEC has sponsored the awards that the Red Flash has posted four or more Scholar-Athletes of the year, joining 2003-04 (six), 2004-05 (five), 2005-06 (five), 2006-07 (six), 2009-10 (four), 2012-13 (six), 2016-17 (eight), 2017-18 (five) and 2023-24 (four).
