Seven Bobcats Named Heart Of A Champion Endowment Recipients

The endowment provides summer school scholarships for Texas State student-athletes who have exhibited perseverance, hard work and the Heart of a Champion.

SAN MARCOS, Texas – Hard work and persistence paid off for seven Texas State student-athletes this summer.

Zandra Emanuel, Erin Hoppe, Immanuel King, Christiana McDowell, Kelson Pierre, Sierra Steimel and Sarah White were recipients of the 2018 Leo John Seitz V Heart of a Champion Endowment.

Determination and perseverance were the qualities that Leo and Kristi Seitz had in mind in 2011 when they created the Heart of a Champion endowment to honor the memory of their son Leo John Seitz V, who passed away on Oct. 11, 2010.

The endowment provides summer school scholarships for Texas State student-athletes who have exhibited perseverance, hard work and the Heart of a Champion.

More about the endowment can be read in a story that was published in Hillviews Magazine last spring.

Emanuel played in nine games as a senior for the women’s basketball team before suffering a season-ending knee injury at Arkansas State.

In her junior year, she received the Most Spirited Award from the Central Texas Region of the National Girls and Women Sports Day organization.

Hoppe became the second Texas State student-athlete to be named the Setter of the Year and earned All-Sun Belt Conference First Team honors in 2017, second-team in 2016 and six Setter of the Week honors in her career.

She led the Sunbelt with an average of 11.46 assists per set and ended her career with 3,010 assists.

King will earn his bachelor’s degree this August after starting 33 games and averaging 8.9 points and 5.8 rebounds as a senior in 2017-18.

He was named to the 2017 Sun Belt Conference All-Tournament Team after scoring a season-high 13 points against UTA in the semifinals and netting 11 points, eight rebounds and season-high five blocked shots in the championship game to help the Bobcats earn a berth into the CIT postseason tournament.

Steimel and McDowell helped Texas State’s softball team play in an NCAA Regional for the third consecutive year and win its first Sun Belt Conference regular season and tournament championships in 2018.

As a senior, Steimel played in 23 games, starting 13 as a designated player and in left field. She finished the season hitting .361, scored seven runs and had four RBI.

McDowell enters her junior year in 2019 having started every game in each of her first two collegiate seasons in center field for the Bobcats. She led the team with 17 stolen bases and 30 runs scored while hitting .252 as a sophomore.

She was also named to the 2017 Sun Belt All-Tournament Team when she helped Texas State advance to the championship game after driving in the only run of an elimination game against UTA. She ended the year hitting .251 and leading the Bobcats with 35 runs scored as a freshman.

Pierre earned All-Sun Belt Conference Second Team honors in 2017 after a third-place finish in the 400 meters and running on the winning 4×400-meter relay team at the Sun Belt Indoor Championships. In 2018, he placed eighth in the 400 meters at the 2018 Sun Belt Indoor and Outdoor Championships.

White competed in Texas State’s 11 golf tournaments and helped the Bobcats finish in fourth place at the Sun Belt Conference Championship as a junior after transferring from Western Michigan.

She also qualified to play as an amateur in the 2018 U.S. Women’s Amateur in Kingston Springs, Tenn.