Six Polar Bears named All-Ohio Athletic Conference in Softball for 2012
By Tim Glon
ADA — Six Ohio Northern student/athletes were named All-Ohio Athletic Conference in softball for 2012 in voting conducted by the league's 10 head coaches.
Seniors Cassie Gaye and Kimi Blewett, sophomore Christin Miller and freshman Kelly Sheridan were all name First Team All-OAC, junior Abbey Bensing was named to the Second Team and senior Katie Cretin was named Honorable Mention All-Conference.
Gaye was second on the team with a .405 batting average and five home runs and was third with 29 RBI and 30 runs scored.
She is now a two-time All-OAC honoree after earning Second team accolades as a freshman in 2009. She also earned All-OAC Tournament Team honors in 2012 for the second time in her career.
Gaye missed the 2011 season with an injury.
In 125 career games, Gaye currently ranks tenth all-time at ONU with 142 base hits. A career .377 hitter, Gaye also ranks fourth with 14 career home runs, is tenth with 92 RBI and is tenth with 27 doubles.
Blewett is ONU's all-time career RBI leader with 203 and is now a four-time First Team All-Conference honoree.
This season, Blewett is batting .358 with a league-leading 11 home runs and 38 RBI. She leads the team with a .717 slugging percentage and 29 bases on balls and is second with a .482 on-base percentage.
In her four seasons as a Polar Bear, Blewett ranks second all-time with 41 career home runs, is first with 49 doubles and is seventh with 100 runs scored.
Miller leads the Polar Bears in batting average (.459), on-base percentage (.484), base hits (68), triples (4), runs scored (41) and stolen bases (10).
She is now a two-time First Team All-OAC honoree and ranks 12th all-time with 138 hits, ranks tenth all-time with eight triples, and is 11th in runs scored with 96.
Miller was also named to the All-OAC Tournament team this season.
Sheridan is currently third on the team in batting with a .368 average and leads the squad with an ONU single-season record 18 doubles and 39 RBI.
She was also named to the All-OAC Tournament team this season.
Bensing is 11-6 with a 2.59 ERA for the Polar Bears this season and leads the team with 116.0 innings pitched and 87 strikeouts.
In three seasons at ONU, Bensing is 19-8 with a 2.52 ERA and ranks eighth all-time with 144 career strikeouts.
Cretin is a three-time All-OAC honoree.
This season, she is batting .367 with 19 RBI and a .406 on-base percentage.
In her four seasons as a Polar Bear, Cretin ranks fifth all-time with 188 base hits, is fourth with 40 doubles and is fourth with 129 RBI.
Ohio Northern is 26-11 overall and won its fourth consecutive OAC Regular Season title this season by finishing with a 14-3 record.
The Polar Bears will travel to Alma, Mich., for the NCAA III Tournament Alma Regional and will face Penn State-Behrend in the first round Thursday at 4 pm under second-year head coach Kim Burke.