Princeton, NJ (6/2/08) – Senior Jackie Ferranti (Bergenfield, NJ / Bergenfield) added one final honor to her incredible 2008 campaign as the senior was named the New Jersey Athletic Conference Female Athlete of the Year. Ferranti was honors at the league's annual Award Brunch at the Princeton Hyatt.

Ferranti becomes the seventh Montclair State athlete to earn one of the conference's highest honor and the first female to be selected since Tara Wisz in 1999. It is also the third straight year that a Red Hawk student-athlete has be awarded Athlete of the Year honors.

Ferranti, a First-Team NFCA All-America, completed of one the best all-round seasons for a Montclair State player in recent memory as she helped the Red Hawks to the 2008 NJAC regular-season and tournament championships while setting a school record for win as MSU posted a 43-6 mark.

Named the NJAC Co-Player of the Year and First-Team All-Conference pick (her fourth), she batted .431 this season with 66 hits, 60 runs scored (single-season record), 16 doubles, four triples, eight home runs and 38 RBI while drawing a season-record 38 walks and posting slugging and on-base percentages of .745 and .542, respectively. In addition she stole 11 bases and successfully handled 126 of 128 chances in the field.

She led the NJAC in eight categories, including batting average, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, runs scored, hits, home runs, total bases and walks while finishing second in RBI. She is the first player in Montclair State softball history to collect 200 hits, 20 home runs and 100 RBI and she ranks second all-time in MSU history in games (178), walks (94); third in runs (154) and home runs (20); fourth in on-base percentage (.454), fifth in total bases (312) and sixth in RBI (123).

The Carol Blazejowski Outstanding Female Athlete of the Year honoree at MSU, Ferranti also became just the fifth athlete and first female in MSU history to be named Academic All-America as she was chosen Third Team to ESPN The Magazine Softball Team. She was a District 2 First-Team selection by the organization.

Ferranti, the 2007 Scholar-Athlete Award winner at MSU, is a four-time Dean's List Student and played the 2008 campaign as a graduate student after earning her Physical Education and Health degree in January. She completed the five-year program in 3 1/2 years and is also a member of the National Student-Athlete Honor Society. While Ferranti was with the Red Hawks, the softball team earned the Athletic Department's Team Academic Achievement Award for the highest team cumulative grade-point average three times.