Chernich signs first NLI of the school year

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) - The first National Letter of Intent signing of the year is here, as Monroe Catholic’s Nadia Chernich signed her national letter of intent to play softball for the Southeastern Louisiana Lions.

SLU is located in Hammond, Louisiana, and the team plays out of the beautiful turfed North Oak Park. The Lions play in the Southland Conference and finished second in conference play last year at 19 and 5 and 47 and 14 in overall play.

Even with all the benefits of going to an excellent college program and the expectation to win, the big draw for Chernich was the family environment. “One thing they’re really talking about is just how much of a family dynamic it is, and I think it’s really good coming from a school where our slogan literally is “family” written all over the school. I think it’s just a really good transition for me, to keep that core family aspect to move over. The students, no the student athletes there, they all really talk about it, how much of a family oriented space it is. It is a smaller division one school, but that’s the atmosphere I was looking for, going into the recruiting process. I knew I wanted to stick to like a smallish school. Just because that’s where I learned better, I know I would thrive in an environment like that,” said Nadia Chernich, Southeastern Louisiana Lions commit.

When asked about how she felt about her daughter achieving her dream, her mom had this to say, “I just couldn’t be more proud. When Nadia was just 12 years old, it’s been her dream to go play D one softball, and it doesn’t seem like from 12 to almost 18 now, that times gone so fast. Just really proud, she put her mind to it. She has put more time, energy, and effort into softball than any person her age, I think put into anything. So she’s put the hard work in, and I’m just so proud. It’s just all paid off, and she’s living her dream, and I just couldn’t be happier for her.”

Chernich’s expectation for her new team is, “that we will win and we will work together, which is, in the past, what’s been shown to happen.”

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