Jerke and L'Esperance Each Named All-Conference in WHAC Season Awards

(Howell, MI)-- The Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) has announced it's 2026 season awards for women's golf, and multiple student-athletes have been recognized.

Lauryn Jerke became the second golfer in program history to be named First-Team All-WHAC.  Jerke, a senior from Richland, had the fifth best total scores of the combined WHAC Fall Preview and this week's WHAC Championships.  She shot rounds of 75-78-79 in the fall, and 87-81-70 this week, to total 470 strokes.  That total allowed her to finish in the top-six, which was enough to be named First-Team All-WHAC.

Finishing in seventh place and being named to the Second-Team All-WHAC was teammate Jana L'Esperance.  L'Esperance, a senior from Byron, had rounds of 80-79-81 in the fall, and 77-80-80 in the spring to total 477.  She finished seven strokes out of sixth place.

Named to the Champions of Character team as the Cougars' representative was Emma Smith, for best best representing the five core character values of the NAIA.

Finally, three members of the team were named to the All-Academic Team.  To be honored, student-athletes must have had at least a 3.25 cumulative GPA and have attended Cleary for at least one full year.  They were (in alphabetical order):

Jana L'Esperance
Emma Smith
Brianna Swickard

All-Time Cleary First-Team, Second-Team, Newcomer Award Recipients:

Lauryn Jerke - First-Team All-Conference (2025-26)
Jana L'Esperance - Second-Team All-Conference (2025-26)
Jana L'Esperance - First-Team All-Conference (2024-25)
Jessica Shay - Second-Team All-Conference (2024-25)
Olivia Root - Second-Team All-Conference (2021-22)
Autumn Blaney - Second-Team All-Conference (2019-20)