College notebook: Kotchman ends career with records, fetes and diploma
Sierra Kotchman ended her stellar basketball career at Fairmont State with numerous school and conference records and was named All-Mountain East Conference first team four times.
A former Trinity standout and Observer-Reporter Girls Basketball Player of the Year, Kotchman was a fifth-year senior for Fairmont State. She collected her fourth All-MEC first team honor in a row after being named Freshman of the Year in 2018.
Kotchman rounded out her career at Fairmont State with 2,556 career points, both MEC and school records, 419 three-pointers, 882 field goals, 133 consecutive starts and games played, and a career free-throw percentage of 88.39. Kotchman, in her five seasons with Fairmont State, averaged 19.2 points per game
Kotchman holds the school records for points (2,556), scoring average (19.2), field goals made (882), three-pointers made (419), and free-throw percentage (88.39).
She cemented her Fairmont State legacy when she made a Mountain East tournament record nine three-point field goals in a 79-70 season-ending loss to West Liberty. Kotchman scored a game-high 33 points.
After the season, Kotchman was selected to the Division II Conference Commissioners Association All-Atlantic Region second team and the College Sports Information Directors of America Academic All-America Division II first team.
Kotchman graduated Summa Cum Laude with a 3.97 grade-point average following the spring 2021 semester. She earned a degree in Business Administration.
In baseball
Gannon’s Ian Hess, a redshirt junior first baseman from Canonsburg, was named the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Atlantic Region Hitter of the Week for April 4-10 in addition to the PSAC West Athlete of the Week for the week ending April 10.
The Canon-McMillan graduate bounced back from an early season slump in a big way. Hess entered the week hitting .175. He ended it with a .269 batting average after going 13-for-28 in eight games with a 1.071 slugging percentage. He scored seven runs and had 13 RBI, hitting five home runs, including three in the last four games. He had a pair of doubles and a stolen base.
A left-handed hitter, Hess went 4-for-13 with a home run and five RBI last weekend as Gannon won three of four games against Clarion.
For the season, Hess is batting .284 with a team-high seven home runs and 23 RBI. He has a .402 on-base percentage.
Cam Weston, a junior right-handed pitcher at Michigan, is coming off his best outing of the season.
A Canon-McMillan graduate, Weston allowed only two hits over seven innings and struck out nine Saturday in the Wolverines’ 8-2 win over Michigan State.
Weston has made eight starts this season and has a 3-2 record and 4.63 ERA. He has 52 strikeouts in 44 2/3 innings. He had a nine-strikeout game against Maryland.
Left-handed pitcher Morgan Switalski has moved into the starting rotation as a freshman at Gardner-Webb.
The Waynesburg graduate has pitched in 10 games for the Bulldogs and made nine starts. He has a 1-4 record and his 4.04 ERA is the second-best on the team. Switalski threw seven innings of two-hit ball with 11 strikeouts in Gardner-Webb’s 2-0 shutout of Brown on March 13.
In track and field
West Virginia Wesleyan senior Kennedy Kuhns has won the javelin event in the Bobcats’ last two competitions.
A senior and Beth-Center graduate, Kuhns finished in first place at West Liberty’s Tim Weaver Invitational on April 2. She had a winning throw of 118-2. Kuhns’ West Virginia Wesleyan teammate, Faith Gandy, a junior from Washington and a Trinity graduate, won the 100-meter dash at the West Liberty event. Gandy had a winning time of 12.21.
Kuhn followed the first-place showing at West Liberty with a win in the javelin at WVW’s Jasmine Claggett Memorial Invitational on Friday in Buckhannon, W.Va. Kuhn had a season-best throw of 122-4 ½.
Kuhns also had a top-5 finish in March at the Charlotte 49 Classic. She was the top-finishing thrower from a Division II school at the meet.
In softball
Kaci Alderson is enjoying a good month at the plate for Mercyhurst.
Alderson, a sophomore designated hitter, is batting .279 with two doubles and two home runs. She had a 4-for-4 game that included a home run and two RBI April 8 against Indiana and was 3-for-6 in a doubleheader last Wednesday against Pitt-Johnstown. She is 6-for-17 at the plate in April.
Former West Greene standout Kaitlyn Rizor is a junior middle infielder at West Virginia Wesleyan.
Rizor has played in 27 games (16 starts) for the Bobcats and is batting .255 with two doubles.
Cameron Meier, a junior outfielder from Washington and Trinity graduate, has a .274 batting average for Point Park, which has won six of its last seven games.
Meier has four doubles and one home run.
Westminster’s Alexis Yates was named Monday as the Presidents’ Athletic Conference Hitter of the Week.
Yates, a South Fayette graduate, hit .400 (6-for-15) with three doubles, eight RBI and three runs during Westminster’s 4-0 week. She went 2-for-3 with a double, three RBI and a run Tuesday against Saint Vincent, and was 4-for-5 with a pair of doubles, three RBI and two runs Thursday against Bethany. It was the first four-hit game of her career.
In golf
Glenville State’s Delaney Lohr, a freshman from Carmichaels, placed 10th at the Greenbrier Invitational held last week at the Greenbrier Golf Club in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. Lohr, who had consecutive rounds of 82, helped the Pioneers to a fourth-place finish in the team standings.
Zach Swink helped Greensboro College to a top-5 finish at the D3 Showcase in French Lick, Ind., last week. A junior from Canonsburg, Swink had rounds of 77 and 71 on the Donald Ross Course to tie for 23rd overall.