Brown and Beikirch Headline Gators honored by Skyline Conference Softball All-Stars
Link to complete Skyline Conference All-Star Softball Team
New York, NY- Sage Colleges’ softball team is riding high with the announcent of the 2012 SKyline Conference Softball All-Star Team. The Gators are currently 26-15 after finishing the season as the Skyline Conference Runner-up and earning the No. 2 seed in the league's tournament. Sage is among the teams in contention for the 2012 ECAC Division III Championship Tournament and will await their fate with the announcement of the tournament field on May 7.
For the Gators, rookie infielder Kristen Beikirch
(Brockport, NY/Brockport) was tapped as the league’s
Rookie of the Year, a program first for Sage. A multiple weekly
award winner this spring, she set a Sage single-season hit record
with her team-best 57 hits. She also leads the Gators with her .445
batting average in 41 games started. She has scored 36 runs and
driven in another 29, while sporting a .641 slugging percentage.
She also leads the Gators with her 16-18 effort on stolen bases.
She hit successfully in 37 of Sage’s 41 games this year and
tied together a 19-game hit streak mid-season as well as 19 games
with a multiple-hit effort at the plate.
Also honored by the league’s coaches in the Gators’ new
head coach, Jamie Brown as she was tapped as the
Skyline Conference Co-Coach of the Year with NYU-Poly’s Jimmy
Barrett. Brown’s Gators have broken almost every
batting and pitching record for a single-season and continue to
impress with their 2012 efforts. Sage boasts a .335 batting
average, while combining for 115 extra-base hits, including 83
doubles with 25 home runs. The Gators’ pitchers have a 3.05
ERA with 202 strikeouts as well. The team, which was picked sixth
in the league’s pre-season poll earned the No. 2 seed in the
league tournament after a strong 9-5 showing in conference play.
Along the way, the Gators strung together a school-record 13-game
win streak, while also establishing a new standard for wins in a
season (26) and in the conference (9).
The Gators placed three players on the Skyline Conference All-Star
First Team, while one more player was recognized with a spot on the
All-Star Second Team. Beikirch was named to the All-Star First Team
at second base, while juniors Rachel Smith (Valatie,
NY/Ichabod Crane) and Kelsey Newberg (New Britain,
CT/New Britain) were selected for the outfielder and as
utility player, respectively. Sophomore short stop Hillary
Faas (East Greenbush, NY/Columbia) rounded out
Sage’s honorees with her posting on the Second Team.
Smith penned her name to Sage single-season records for
home runs (8), at-bats (141), and runs scored (41). She is also a
record holder as this year’s team has played in more games
than any other Sage squad with 41 appearances to her credit. For
the year, Smith is batting .369 with 52 hits, including 12 doubles
and 8 home runs. She has 35 RBIs with a. 638 slugging percentage.
She has also turned a strong performance as a Sage pitcher. She is
11-8 with a 2.64 ERA in 98 innings of work with 72 strikeouts. She
hit successfully in all but five games this season and had nine
games with multiple RBIs, including a personal-best five RBIs in
the Gators’ 16-2 win over Skidmore.
Adding to the success of the Gators is another junior as
Newberg also put herself into the Sage softball
annuls with her 2012 performances. Newberg broke a pair of
long-standing Sage strikeout records for both a season and career.
She has fanned 108 batters this season alone and now has 176 career
strikeouts. She is 15-7 this year and her 15 wins in a season is
another active Gator record. In the circle for Sage this year,
Newberg fanned 10 or more batters twice, including an 11-strikeout
effort as Sage bested Cazenovia in the team’s home opener.
Newberg’s success this season has not limited to her time as
a pitcher as she has also batted .295 with 38 hits and 23
RBIs.
Faas is another of the Gators with a record to their credit as she tallied 39 RBIs and has also scored 34 runs, while starting all 41 games at short. She had 18 multiple-hit games this season, while adding three doubles in game as Sage faced Mt. St. Mary College in conference play. She has 13 doubles, just one shy of the Gator single-season mark and has 139 at-bats, which is also No. 2. On the season she owns a .374 batting average with a .554 slugging percentage and is 4-4 on stolen bases this season.
