Troy, NY – For the second straight year, The Sage College's softball team has produced a candidate for the CoSIDA Capital One Academic All-District Team as junior utility player Kristen Beikirch (Brockport, NY/Brockport) was named to the All-District Team and is now a candidate for the 2014 CoSIDA Capital One Academic All-America Team, an honor she also collected as a sophomore.
Beikirch, who was the 2013 Skyline Conference Player of the Year and both the ECAC Metro NY-NJ- and the 2012 Skyline Conference Rookie of the Year, was placed on the 2014 Skyline Conference All-Star Second Team as a utility player. She batted .383 this spring with a team-best 43 runs scored and is 20-20 on stolen bases. She leads the team with 13 doubles in 36 starts and has played at first and third base, while also working behind the plate as a catcher. On her career, Beikirch owns several career marks as well. Among them, she is the program's career stolen base leader with 53, while also leading the Gators with her 128 runs scored. She stands No. 9 in career games played (123), No. 2 in at-bats (415), No. 2 in hits (175), No. 4 in doubles (29), No. 8 in triples (7), No. 3 in home runs (14), and No. 5 in RBI's (71). She owns a .422 career batting average as well in her time as a Gator.
Beikirch is also ranks nationally in Division III in doubles per game (No. 111 with 0.36), while standing at No. 33 in runs scored per game (1.19) and stolen bases (No. 52).
As a junior, she was named the Sage Female Athlete of the Year after earning numerous individual honors as a member of the 2013 Gators. Among them was a selection as the 2013 Skyline Conference Softball Player of the Year and to the 2013 CoSIDA Capital One Academic All-America Third Team. She finished her sophomore year with another record-setting pace and ranked nationally in six different categories. She ranked No. 43 in runs scored per game (1.12), while ranking 72nd in batting average (0.444). She also ranked in slugging percentage (0.688, No. 116) as well as home runs (6, No. 166), triples (3, No. 158) and on-base percentage (0.464, No. 250).
She not only led Sage in batting average, but the entire conference in batting with her blistering .444 and broke her own record from the 2012 season as she connected for 64 hits this season, two more than last year's 62 hits. She also added a team-leading 11 doubles, three triples, and six home runs. She had a .688 slugging percentage that matched her impressive .464 on-base percentage. Beikirch had 17 multiple-hit games on the season, while starting all 41 games for the Gators.
Academically, she has excelled in the classroom as a biology and pre-med major with a 3.92 grade-point-average. A National Honor Society student at Brockport High School, she earned four letters in softball and was a two-time first team all-county pick as a junior and senior. She also earned All-Greater Rochester Honorable Mention honors.
At Sage, she has been named to the Skyline Conference Scholar-Athlete Team twice and had also earned five selections to the Dean's List. She is a candidate for the 2014 Sage Spring Scholar-Athlete Team as well as the 2014 Skyline Conference Scholar-Athlete Team. She is the daughter of David and Michele Beikirch.
The 2014 softball team stands at 23-13 on the year having finished as the Skyline Conference Tournament Runners-up. The Gators won the 2014 Skyline Conference regular-season title and earned the No. 1 seed after producing a 10-4 record in league play. The Gators are awaiting news of a possible ECAC Metro Tournament bid after having earned bids in both 2012 and 2013.