Higher Education Yahoo (HEY) Awards
It's been quite a freshman season for South Florida center fielder Juli Weber of Tri-Valley.
Weber has been named Rookie of the Year and first-team all-conference in the American Athletic Conference. She batted .346 (.414 in conference play, third in the league) with eight doubles, 21 RBIs, 44 hits (second in league play) and a stellar .935 fielding percentage.
Thanks in part to Weber's play, the Bulls are 41-15, made it to the semifinals of the conference tournament before losing 8-0 to Louisville, and have a shot at an NCAA at-large bid.
Going 2-for-2, Weber was the only South Florida player to record multiple hits against Louisville. That and her two hits in the team's opening playoff win over Memphis made her the team leader in playoff hits.
Susquehanna won its first ever Landmark Conference baseball title and an automatic bid to the NCAA D-III tournament, and local players Taylor Luckenbill and Ty Raubenstine have both earned conference honors.
Luckenbill, a freshman right fielder from Nativity, was named Rookie of the Year and a first-team all-conference selection. Raubenstine, a senior center fielder from Upper Dauphin, received his second second-team all-conference selection after he earned his first in 2012.
Luckenbill led the Crusaders with a .378 average and hit .432 in conference play - third in the league. He set a single-season record with 59 hits, had a team-leading 10 doubles and drove in 22 runs.
In the conference title game, a 5-2 win over Moravian, Luckenbill's sacrifice fly drove in what proved to be the winning run.
Leadoff hitter Raubenstine hit .284 with 44 hits, a team-high 39 runs, 16 RBIs and 16 stolen bases.
For his career, Raubenstine ranks in the top 10 in program history in at-bats, runs, walks, stolen bases and hits.
During the playoffs, Raubenstine had three hits and scored two runs in an opening-round, 11-4 win over Catholic, and added two hits and a run in a second-round, 6-5 win over Merchant Marine Academy.
Misericordia captured its fourth consecutive Freedom Conference baseball title and an automatic NCAA bid with a 10-6 win over Manhattanville. Freshman outfielder Nick Hair of Pottsville had two hits and an RBI in the title game.
For the season, Hair is batting .330 with 21 RBIs and a .493 on-base-percentage. He has made only one error in the field.
The Penn College women's softball team captured its first Penn
State University Athletic Conference (PSUAC) title since 2007 with a 1-0 win over top-seeded PSU-Mont Alto. Sophomore shortstop-outfielder-pitcher Alexandra Brennan of Pottsville, who batted .310 with 15 RBIs for the season, had one of Penn College's three hits in the victory.
The Penn College baseball team made it to the semifinals of the PSUAC tourney, losing 4-3 to PSU-Brandywine. Freshman outfielder Cole Weachock of Minersville batted .298 on the season with 15 RBIs and a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage with 22 putouts.
The Lebanon Valley College (LVC) women's softball team captured the Commonwealth Conference title with a 2-1 win over Alvernia, negating a strong pitching performance from Pine Grove graduate Brittanie Wolfe.
LVC senior shortstop Mary Readinger of Williams Valley scored the first run. A defensive standout, Readinger recorded 62 putouts and 79 assists in the field this season while fielding .966 with only five errors.
LVC advanced to the NCAA's, but lost 3-1 to Kean in the first round. On Sunday, LVC came back to stay alive by beating Husson 3-1, but was then eliminated by Kean, 3-2.
Alvernia came back from a first-round, 6-1 loss to McDaniel to capture the ECAC South Tournament on a six-hit, 2-0, complete-game win over McDaniel from Wolfe.
Wolfe was named the tournament's Outstanding Player.
After the loss to McDaniel, Alvernia beat Arcadia 5-4 and Misericordia 5-2, with Wolfe hurling a complete game, on Saturday.
Sunday, Alvernia took two from McDaniel 6-5 behind Wolfe's save and then the 2-0 final. On the season, Wolfe is 16-12 with an outstanding 2.19 ERA and 18 complete games.
Turning to some more individual honors, Waynesburg University sophomore first baseman Matt Bensinger of Hamburg was named to the Capital One Academic All-Division III District IV baseball team.
On the field, Bensinger hit .333 while starting all but one game. His three triples led the team and he added nine doubles and 23 RBIs.
In the classroom, he has a .3.64 grade-point-average while majoring in criminal justice.
Wilkes junior second baseman Bobby Schappell of Pottsville was named an All-Freedom Conference honorable mention after a season in which he batted .304 with 35 hits, seven doubles and 14 RBIs. He stole eight basesa in 11 attempts, and had a sparkling .949 fielding percentage with a team-high 91 assists.
LVC senior baseball players Corey Cinicola of Jim Thorpe and Mike Specht of Hamburg were both honorable-mention All-Commonwealth Conference selections.
Center fielder Cinicola batted .315 with three home runs, 17 RBIs and 18 runs. Left fielder Specht batted .308 with two dingers, 17 runs and 10 RBIs.
LVC was knocked out of the conference tournament by losses to Widener and Alvernia.
Going back to Wilkes, softball outfielder/pitcher Alysha Bixler of Williams Valley became the school's all-time leader in home runs, belting her 27th and 28th career round-trippers in a two-game sweep of Baptist Bible College.
On the season, Bixler batted .333 with 11 homers and 35 RBIs - both team-leading marks.
Penn State Berks women's basketball player Shanelle Koch of Blue Mountain received a scholar-athlete award from the school in recognition of academic and athletic excellence at PSU-Berks' recent fall/winter awards banquet.
Koch averaged 15 points and 7.3 rebounds per game and had 31 blocks and 31 assists.
Track talk
It was an excellent Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Outdoor Championships for LVC junior Taylor Gerchak of Pottsville.
Gerchak earned first-team All-MAC honors and helped LVC's women's team to a second-place finish by getting a bronze medal in the triple jump and by finishing fifth in the long jump and sixth in the heptathlon.
Also recording two bronzes in the 1,500- and 5,000-meter runs, and making the All-MAC first team was Gerchak's sophomore teammate, Kelsey Patrick of Tamaqua, while sophomore Tori Stramara of Blue Mountain earned second-team All-MAC mention with a sixth-place finish in the triple jump.
Bloomsburg freshman distance runner Jake Plachko of Pottsville recorded a career-best 9:58.88 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the Maroon and Gold Invitational. Plachko missed qualifying for the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Championships by a scant eight-tenths of a second.
At the PSAC's, Bloomsburg sophomore Meghan Hallick of Pottsville set a personal best in finishing seventh in the shot put and finished 13th in the hammer throw.
Teammate Vicki Davis of Schuylkill Haven was fourth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, bettering her NCAA-provisional qualifying mark.
(McLaughlin's college notebook appears biweekly during the collegiate calender. Send items to him in care of Sports Editor Leroy Boyer at lboyer@republicanherald.com.)