June 27, 2008
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - Marshall baseball's Adam Yeager and women's tennis player Kellie Schmitt were named the Marshall Student-Athletes of the Year, it was announced earlier this week.
Yeager will receive the Ed Starling Award as the top male athlete while Schmitt is the recipient of the Dot Hicks Award for the top female athlete. Both will be honored at Marshall's football game against Memphis on September 13, 2008. The game, which will mark the Thundering Herd's Conference USA opener, is slated to begin at 7 p.m. and will be televised by CSS.
Adam Yeager played a pivotal role in Marshall's march through the 2008 Conference USA Tournament. He hit a team-best .455 in six games with a tournament-record nine stolen bases in leading the sixth-seeded Herd all the way to a berth in the championship game.
Yeager was 47-of-56 in stolen base attempts in 2008, the highest total in the nation. It also marked a new school record. His average of 0.77 steals per game put him third in the national rankings. He also contributed in other categories, ranking second on the team in walks with 34, second with 59 runs scored and third in batting average, hitting .322 for the season. Yeager was also the only member of the team to play in and start all 61 games in the 2008 season.
Kellie Schmitt concluded her 2008 singles season 23-4 at the number one position with her second consecutive C-USA Player of the Year and All-Conference First Team honors as well as being named an ITA East Regional Player-to-Watch. The junior ended the year as the highest C-USA singles player at No. 55 and also the third-ranked East Regional singles player.
Schmitt garnered three C-USA Player of the Week awards this spring and was named the 2007 October Player of the Month.
In May, Schmitt was the first program history to advance to the 2008 NCAA Singles Second Round, but fell to then 12th-ranked Megan Moulton-Levy from William and Mary. She also paired with teammate Karolina Soor to create one of the top doubles tandems in the nation. The pair advanced to the round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament before falling to top-seeded Duke.
