VALDOSTA, Ga. – Valdosta State senior softball infielder Aniston Gano earned Second Team Academic All-America as selected by College Sports Communicators, announced Monday afternoon.
 
Gano, a native of Lakeland, Ga., became the 35^th Blazer student-athlete to earn Academic All-America® honors in program history.  She is eighth different softball student-athlete to earn the prestigious honor and the 11^th softball honoree for the Blazer athletic department in program history. 
 
She earned NFCA Second Team All-America honors this season capping an outstanding career both in the classroom and on the field.  She was named Co-Gulf South Conference Player of the Year honors this season, named first team all-league and earned D2CCA First Team All-Region honors.   This season, Gano helped lead VSU to the GSC postseason tournament for the 35^th time in program history as the team finished 26-25 overall and went 19-13 in GSC play.  Gano finished the season hitting a team-best .393 on 57 of 145 from the dish in 51 starts at first base.  She scored 27 runs with three doubles and a team-best 17 home runs, while driving in 44.  Gano slugged .766 and reached base at a .527 clip with a team-high 38 walks and was hit by pitches four times. 
 
She reached base during the season in 27-straight games and recorded 15 multi-hit games with a season-best three hit games four times and has a team-high 14 multi-RBI games and drove in a season-best four RBI against Florida Southern (2/7).  Gano was named GSC Player of the Week twice and finished with 257 putouts with ten assists in 269 chances with two errors for a .993 fielding percentage.  She also helped turn five double plays.  
 
Nationally speaking, Gano finished 11^th in home runs (17), while she is 19^th in on base percentage (.527) to lead the GSC both categories.  She is 28^th nationally in slugging percentage (.766) for second in the league and is second in the GSC in total bases with 111.  She is 16^th nationally in walks per game at a 0.76 clip to lead the league. 
 
For her career, she finished second all-time in both GSC history and school history in home runs with 63, while she played in 205 games with a .338 career batting average, scored 120 runs with 200 hits, 21 doubles, three triples and drove in 194.  She finished with a career slugging percentage of .704 and reached base at a .453 clip.   
 
She earned NFCA All-America At-Large honors in 2024 coming off a season-ending injury in 2023.  She earned second team all-league honors last season and was a member of the GSC All-Tournament team.  She earned second team all-region by both the NFCA and D2CCA in 2024.  Gano earned Academic Honor Roll accolades in 2021, 2022, 2024 and now 2025, while earning GSC All-Academic for the first time.  She finished with a 3.9 grade point average in graduate school earning a degree in physical education and she had a 3.83 undergraduate GPA.