NEW ORLEANS – Texas State softball had four players named to the 2024 All-Sun Belt Conference Teams, as well as pitcher Jessica Mullins was named the 2024 Sun Belt Pitcher of the Year.
 
Mullins has been named to the All-Sun Belt First Team all four of her years at Texas State. This is the senior's second Pitcher of the Year accolade in her career, her last being in 2022.
 
Sara Vanderford and Hannah Earls were tabbed as All-Conference First Team while JJ Smith was named Second Team.
 
Mullins also won four awards for Sun Belt Player of the Week in the 2024. She finished the regular season with a 1.21 ERA, a 27-7 record, and having struck out 196 batters and allowed just 37 earned runs throughout the 2023 season. She was amongst the best in the nation in her ERA, number of wins, appearances, innings pitched and strikeouts.
 
The pitcher has made her presence known in the Sun Belt, having 20+ wins in each of the four seasons of her career and boasting a cumulative sub-2.0 ERA along the way.
 
For Vanderford, this is the third time in her career being named to the All-Sun Belt team. She was named All-Sun Belt First Team in her freshman year where she was also named Sun Belt Freshman of the Year. She was named to the Sun Belt Third Team in the 2023 season.
 
Vanderford finished the regular season batting .352 on the year with 41 runs from 57 hits. She led the Bobcats and the Sun Belt with 22 doubles on the season. She set the school record for career home runs and RBI this season while she tallied 11 homers and 43 RBI this season.
 
Earls was named First Team All-Conference for the second time in her career. The senior's first accolade came in the 2022 season.

Earls was the lead off batter in all 55 regular season games for the Bobcats this season, and her consistency proved dominant. She finished the regular season batting .368 with 33 runs from 70 hits, nine RBI and 15 walks. She also tallied 16 stolen bases this season.
 
Smith earned her first All-Conference accolade since joining Texas State in the Sun Belt Conference. Smith was named the unanimous Big 12 Conference All-Freshman Team in her freshman season at Texas.
 
Smith was the Bobcats starting first basemen throughout the entirety of the season. While she batted .293 this season, that improved to .349 in conference play where she had 22 hits, 11 runs, six home runs and 17 RBI in the 24 conference games. 
 
The Bobcats will continue play in the Sun Belt Conference Championship on Thursday, May 9th at 7 p.m. Texas State will face the winner of the game between Georgia Southern and Marshall on Wednesday, May 8 in their first game of the tournament. All the games will be streamed on ESPN+ or tickets can be purchased at txst.com/tickets.