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A record six Scots named All-Midwest Conference Release Date:
May 8, 2009
MONMOUTH, Ill. —
Senior Sarah Christensen (Galesburg, Ill./Galesburg)
was named the Midwest Conference South Division Pitcher of the Year
for the second consecutive year as a record six Fighting Scots were
named to the all-conference softball team.
A pair of freshmen joined Christensen on the
first team. Catcher Lauren Bergstresser (Peoria,
Ill./Richwoods) and shortstop Morgan Seiler (Chillicothe,
Ill./IVC) earned selections after stellar inaugural seasons. Another
freshman and two seniors were tabbed for the second team. Freshman
utility player Brittany Forney (Spring Valley, Ill./Hall)
joined senior pitcher Amanda Murdock (Aledo, Ill./Aledo) and
senior outfielder Ashley Parer (Rock Island ,Ill./Rock
Island) in picking up their first all-league honors.
Christensen, who last year became the Scots’
first Pitcher of the Year, finished the 2009 season with a 9-4
record and a 3.43 ERA. She finished in the top five in the Midwest
Conference in five categories. She held opponents to a .231 batting
average while recording 101 strikeouts. Her 276 career Ks ranks her
second on Monmouth’s all-time list.
Bergstresser racked up a conference-leading 24
stolen bases, which also set the Scots’ season record. In her first
year, she is already more than halfway to the career mark of 43 set
by Drew Robinson from 2005-07. Her .391 average tied for
third in the league and she also tied for second with 32 runs
scored.
Seiler led the Scots with 25 RBIs while hitting
at a .361 clip. She collected six doubles and posted a .505 slugging
percentage. In coach John Goddard’s nomination of Seiler, he
wrote, “She was out with an injury for seven straight games, and we
lost all seven.”
Forney began the year as a utility player,
logging most of her time in the outfield before taking a role as the
designated player. She hit .307 with 14 RBIs and was 7-for-7 in
stolen bases.
Murdock’s six wins this season was the most in
her career. Her 78 innings pitched were second on the team to
Christensen. The senior allowed just four hits and no earned runs in
her last two regular season games. For the season, she had a nearly
two-to-one strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Parer finished her career in style with a
career-high .314 batting average. She was a perfect 6-for-6 in
stolen base attempts and ended her career with a 93 percent success
rate. Parer also scored a career-high 18 runs for the Fighting
Scots.
Monmouth finished the season with a 17-19
record, marking the most wins for the program since the 2003 South
Division Championship team won 22 games. This is the fourth straight
year the Scots have posted double-digit wins. One of the Scots’ wins
came over a nationally ranked team which had lost to only two other
teams during the regular season. Monmouth’s six selections to the
all-conference team are the most in Fighting Scots’ softball
history.
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