NJCAA, NFCA honor record-setting teammates for season performances
For five star players at Kirkwood Community College, the awards keep on coming. Fresh from All-Region announcements in late May, the group received All-American honors from two different organizations.
Both the National Junior College Athletic Association and National Fastpitch Coaches Association named the quintet to their honor rosters. Three sophomores and two first-year players got the notifications on June 1.
• Graduating second base player Molly Link was named to both organizations’ All-American First Team. The Holy Cross, Iowa native broke Kirkwood single-season records in 2010 for hits (106) and home runs (14), ending the season with a .502 batting average. Link had a remarkable 4 homers in one game against D-I Southeastern Community College during the season. She will continue her student-athlete career this fall in Minnesota at Winona State University.
• Carlie Schnoebelen was named to the NFCA First Team, her second such award in two Kirkwood seasons. After a stellar high school career in New Hampton, Iowa Schnoebelen finished 2010 with 72 hits, eight home runs and a .429 batting average. Her aggressiveness on the base paths also got national attention, going 39 for 41 attempts and ranking her 12th in the country. Schnoebelen will also continue her collegiate play in Minnesota this fall, at UM-Duluth.
• Pitcher Kylee Knop won second team honors for both NJCAA and NFCA All-American squads. In her second year with the Eagles, Knop struck out 144 batters and allowed just 26 walks and an earned run average of 1.174. She won 25 games for Kirkwood in 2009-10, recording a no-hitter in the process. Knop notched 47 wins in her two seasons for the Eagles, breaking a long-held school record. Knop will continue her collegiate softball play at the University of South Carolina-Aiken.
• First-year pitcher Amanda Lambrecht set some freshman records that will be hard to match. The East Moline, Ill. native threw an impressive total of six no-hitters and two perfect games, earning her NJCAA National Player of the Week honors during the season. Overall, Lambrecht had 254 strikeouts, beating a 12-year school record by 52 and finishing with an ERA of just 0.820 and a season record of 23-2. Lambrecht was named to the NFCA First Team and NJCAA Third Team All-American rosters.
• First year third-base player Jami Miller saw action in all 61 Eagles games the past season. She got 82 hits, 13 home runs and a .469 batting average for the year. Miller was also successful in all 28 of her stolen base attempts. She also was named to the NFCA All-American First Team. Miller graduated from Genoa, Ill.-Kingston High School.
The Kirkwood Eagles Softball program looks back at 2009-10 as one for the record books, finishing with a 55-6 overall record and pages of broken school records in many categories. For Head Coach Joe Yegge, his three-year Kirkwood record totals 122-40.