Siebert leads three All-SAC picks for C-N softball
ROCK HILL, S.C. – Carson-Newman senior second baseman Elayna Siebert (Knoxville, Tenn.), as well as first baseman Lindsay Dean (Coeburn, Va.) and shortstop Kristen Toppel (Roanoke, Va.) have been lauded by the South Atlantic Conference with all-league honors.
VIDEO: Elayna Siebert Interview
Siebert makes the first team for a third time in her career, but the first as a second baseman. She was a first team utility player as a freshman and junior. Dean earned second team honors as a pitcher last season before grabbing them at first this year. This is Toppel's first postseason honor from the league office.
Siebert tallied a .373 average to lead the Eagles. The senior had 35 RBI, four dingers and four triples in her senior season. The 35 runs batted in rank ninth in the league while the four triples are the fourth highest total in the conference.
The Karns High School graduate collected the fourth, four-hit day of her career against Bluefield State, coming a home run shy of the cycle that day. She matched her own school record for doubles in a single game when she connected on three in April against Wingate.
Dean became the first Eagle since Brittany Hefner in 2013 to lead the conference in home runs. Dean slugged 13 dingers on the season and had 10 alone in the month of March. The seven home runs she hit in conference play are also tops for the SAC.
The sophomore hit .289 for the year and drove in 39 to rank sixth in the league. Dean has driven in multiple RBI on six occasions this year including a trio of four-RBI performances against Belmont Abbey, Queens and Mars Hill.
In that game against the Lions, she belted two dingers, the only C-N player this season and the first since 2015 with multiple home runs in the same game.
Toppel started all but two games at short this year (she and Siebert switched positions for those two games) and hit .350 for the year. Toppel produced a 16-game hitting streak between February and March for the Eagles, the fourth longest in school history.
The sophomore finished in the top 15 in the conference in eight offensive statistical categories. Toppel tallied up 15 multi-hit performances, second on the team to Siebert, and five multi-RBI days.
She had a pair of three-hit performances on the season at Clark Atlanta and Tusculum, while she produced a trio of runs batted in against Belmont Abbey, Bluefield State and USC Aiken.
Siebert, Dean and Toppel will be on display Thursday in the first round of the SAC Softball Championship in Hartsville, S.C. at 5:30 against Lincoln Memorial.
