New York, NY--The Sage Colleges' junior outfielder and pitcher Rachel Smith (Valatie, NY/Ichabod Crane), a member of the softball team was named one of five student-athletes that were cited as the 2011-2012 Skyline Conference Scholar-Athletes of the Year.
The Male and Female Scholar-Athletes of the Year are the student-athletes in the conference with the highest grade point average among individuals earning first-team All-Skyline Conference honors. Three cross-country runners share the Skyline Conference Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year honor, while a cross-country runner and softball player share the Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year laurels.
Farmingdale State senior Sean Tiernan, the individual medalist at the Skyline Championship with a time of 27:39, and St. Joseph's-L.I. brothers Eric and Evan Haun are the male winners. Eric, a senior, finished second in the Skyline meet, and Evan, a sophomore and a repeat winner of this Scholar-Athlete award, finished third.
On the women's side, sophomore Caitlin Ryan of St. Joseph's-L.I., who finished fifth in the Skyline Championship, shares the Scholar-Athlete honor with Sage's Smith. All five of the aforementioned student-athletes garnered first-team All-Skyline distinction while achieving a perfect 4.0 grade point average during the season in which they competed.
Earlier this month, student-athletes from the league's 17 different conference sports were named Skyline Conference Scholar-Athletes of the Year in their respective sports.
Smith's accomplishments at Sage this past spring were widespread. She was named the recipient of the 2012 Gator of the Year Award as the team Most Valuable Player in softball, while also garnering a selection as the Female Athlete of the Year at Sage for her efforts during the 2011-2012 academic year. She was also named to the 2012 Skyline Conference All-Star First Team in softball, another first-time feat for Sage, while becoming the very first Sage student-athlete to garner a spot on the Capital One - CoSIDA Academic All-America Team, after earning Third Team acclaim on the 2012 College Division Softball Team.
On her 2012 season, she penned her name to Sage single-season records for home runs (9), at-bats (169), and runs scored (43). She is also a record holder as this year's team has played in more games than any other Sage squad with 46 appearances to her credit. For the year, Smith batted .363 with 58 hits, including 12 doubles, one triple and nine home runs. She drove in 39 RBI's with a. 619 slugging percentage. She also turned a strong performance as a Sage pitcher in 2012. She went 13-8 with a team-best 2.52 ERA in 111 innings of work with a personal-best 78 strikeouts. She hit successfully in all but five games this season and had 11 games with multiple RBIs, including a personal-best five RBIs in the Gators' 16-2 win over Skidmore. She was named to the 2012 Skyline Conference All-Star First Team and is also a candidate for the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) All-Star Team.
Sage's 2012 softball team achieved a number of program firsts as well this season. Among the highlights the Gators garnered the No. 2 seed in both the Skyline Conference Softball Tournament and the ECAC Metro NY-NJ Championships and by tournament's end had captured the runner-up trophy in both tournaments, both program firsts for the softball program which just wrapped its 40th season with a distinguished list of records and accomplishments, while under the direction of their new head coach, Jamie Brown after posting an impressive 29-17 record.
