Athletes of the Week

The Collegian Athlete of the Week was meant to single out an athlete who excelled on the playing field. Sometimes at South Dakota State, though, it’s hard to pick just one, so this time we have seven.

First is Mike Daum, the redshirt freshman forward on the men’s basketball team who earned Summit League Tournament MVP after leading the Jacks to the tournament title and an NCAA berth. Daum was also named to the All-Tournament team, as well as being named to the Summit League regular season first team All-Conference, Sixth Man of the Year and Freshman of the Year.

Sophomore guard Macy Miller also garnered Tournament MVP for the women’s basketball team as she led them to an upset of top-seeded South Dakota and their second straight NCAA tournament bid. Miller leads the Jacks in scoring this year and will look to continue her strong season against Miami in the NCAA tournament.

In golf, the Jacks swept the men’s and women’s Conference Player of the Week awards last week with Felipe Strobach and Megan Mingo after both helped lead the Jacks to wins at the Jackrabbit Invitational.

Mingo won the seventh annual Jackrabbit Invitational Tuesday with a 54-hole 214 that included six birdies. She is the first Jackrabbit to win an individual title at the Division I level.

Strobach finished second at the Jackrabbit Invitational. He shot a 215 with 14 birdies for his best collegiate performance so far.

In women’s tennis, Ffion Davies used a 5-0 record on the week, including a couple of match-winning victories, to earn Summit League Player of the week for the third time in her career.  She won four of five matches in straight sets and scored the match-winning point twice.

Sophomore catcher Luke Ringhofer had a pair of multi-hit games in the Jackrabbit baseball team’s first wins of the season at Northern Colorado. For the week, he batted .412 (7-for-17) with a home run, four runs batted in and six runs scored. He also walked six times and remains one of the toughest players in the nation to strike out as he fanned only two times in 65 plate appearances.

Finally, senior Devan Larsen set the SDSU school record for career home runs with her 26th in a loss against Creighton. Larsen, who also owns the SDSU single-season record with 16 home runs last year, broke Steph Kuhl’s record of 25, which was set from 2004-07.