{"id":222958,"date":"2026-04-08T04:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T04:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/222958\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T04:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T04:18:14","slug":"student-athletes-celebrate-at-the-2026-owlspys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/222958\/","title":{"rendered":"Student-Athletes Celebrate at the 2026 Owlspys"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOCA RATON, Fla. \u2013 Florida Atlantic student-athletes gathered Tuesday evening to celebrate team and individual successes at the 12th annual Owlspys, an event hosted and organized by the FAU student-athlete advisory committee.
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\nThe featured event was held in the Barry Kaye Performing Arts Auditorium, and the post-awards event was in the Flagler Credit Union Stadium Delray Genesis Club.
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\nThis year’s top honors were awarded to senior swimmer Daniel Laureyssens and senior softball pitcher Autumn Courtney. The duo is the first in Owlspys’ history to receive both the Student-Athlete and the Athlete of the Year awards.
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\nLaureyssens came to Florida Atlantic from Brasschaat, Belgiumin the fall of 2024. He has rewritten the record books in his time at FAU as the school record holder in the 50 free, 100 free, 200 free, 100 fly and is a part of five school record relays. His 200 free school record performance this past November, broke former Owl Olympian and national champion, Bela Szabados’s record which stood for 29 years. Laureyssens was named to the College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District team in 2025 and has earned ASUN Swimmer of the Week honoree. In 2026, Laureyssens was named the ASUN Male Most Outstanding Swimmer and the Male Scholar Athlete of the Year and he became the first male swimmer since 2006 to represent FAU at the NCAA national meet.
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\nCourtney, from Tappahannock, Virginia, arrived at Florida Atlantic for the 2025 season and quickly established herself as one of the top pitchers in the nation. She became FAU softball’s fifth All-American in program history after unanimously earning American Conference Pitcher of the Year honors after leading the Owls to their second consecutive American regular season championship as well as a NCAA Regional appearance. In 2025, she finished top 30 nationally with 24 wins, an ERA of 2.03, and 172 strikeouts, all of which are the best marks for an Owl since 2016. She finished the season with a conference-high four Pitcher of the Week Awards on the way to a unanimous American First Team selection and was a First Team All-Region recipient, while earning 50 career wins and 500 career strikeouts in the process.
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\nFlorida Atlantic President Adam Hasner joined the student-athletes to present the Dr. Shaw Award to Cica Carvalho, a member of the FAU swimming & diving team.
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\nEVENT WINNERS
\nMale All-Freshman Team \u2013 Josiah Parker (basketball), Nazayer Franco (cross country), Josh Roberts (football), Noah Reeves (swimming & diving), Bullion Sharp (tennis), Louka Morin (golf), Garrett Grant (baseball), Emil Lausten (soccer)
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\nFemale All-Freshman \u2013 Isabel Bostic (soccer), Makenna Lee (softball), Viktoria Sorensen (swimming & diving), Erin Rodgers (basketball), Sophie Dethier (cross country\/track & field), Mia Scanlon (beach volleyball), Katrin Pavkova (tennis), Tina Genoulaz (golf), Kyliee Topelski (cheer), Payton McGuire (dance)
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\nMale Individual Performance of the Year \u2013 Mamadou Diarra
\nFemale Individual Performance of the Year \u2013 Jaden Martinez
\nTeam Performance of the Year \u2013 Beach Volleyball
\nStaff Member of the Year \u2013 Terrance Tarver<\/a>
\nPicture Perfect Award \u2013 Linnea Magee
\nMale Iron Owl Award \u2013 Jack Brugman (Men’s Golf)
\nFemale Iron Owl Award \u2013 Kendall Mignerey (Beach Volleyball)
\nIndividual Community W.I.N.G. Award \u2013 Malwina Rowinska and Maya Shanok (women’s tennis)
\nTeam Community W.I.N.G. Award – Softball
\nCoach of the Year \u2013 Joey Worthen (Men’s Soccer)
\nMale Athlete of the Year \u2013 Daniel Laureyssens (swimming & diving)
\nFemale Athlete of the Year \u2013 Autumn Courtney (softball)
\nMale Student-Athlete of the Year \u2013 Daniel Laureyssens (swimming & diving)
\nFemale Student-Athlete of the Year \u2013 Autumn Courtney (softball)
\nDr. Shaw Award for Academic Excellence \u2013 Cica Carvalho (swimming & diving)
\nMale New to the Nest Award \u2013 Marshall Lipsey (baseball)
\nFemale New to the Nest Award \u2013 Malwina Rowinska (tennis)
\nOwl Cup – Softball
\nOWLstanding Spirit Award \u2013 Yani Guzman (softball)
\nMale Leadership Award \u2013 Payne Smith (swimming & diving)
\nFemale Leadership Award \u2013 Kendall Mignerey (beach volleyball)
\nVideo of the Year \u2013 Beach Volleyball (Maddie Sides \/ Ben Chitoff)<\/p>\n

PHOTO GALLERY
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Gallery: (4-7-2026) 2026 Owlspys <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOCA RATON, Fla. \u2013 Florida Atlantic student-athletes gathered Tuesday evening to celebrate team and individual successes at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-222958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}