Nyhof and Fleet sweep Big South Scholar-Athletes awards
Coastal Carolina volleyball player Jill Nyhof (Alpharetta, Ga.) and Chanticleers’ baseball player Austin Fleet (Edmond, Okla.) were voted the 2009-10 Big South Conference Female and Male Scholar-Athletes of the Year, respectively. The Scholar-Athletes of the Year are voted on by the Big South sports information directors from a pool of each sport’s Scholar-Athlete winner.“I am very proud of the academic success of Jill and Austin, as well as a majority of our student-athletes at Coastal Carolina,” said Chanticleer athletics director Hunter Yurachek. “While most people judge us on our wins and losses, our primary mission is to graduate student-athletes. We have established ourselves as a place you can thrive both academically and athletically – not only being champions on the field, but preparing to be champions for life.”
This marks the 10th time in the 14-year history of the award a Coastal Carolina female student-athlete has won and Nyhof is just the second Big South volleyball player to be honored, joining Coastal’s Jeanna Lambert (2000-01).
An ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA second team Academic All-America, Nyhof graduated from Coastal Carolina with a 4.00 grade-point average in political science. The Big South Conference’s first volleyball Academic All-America since 2004, Nyhof led the Big South in blocks this past season with 1.25 blocks per game to rank 34th in the nation. She also had a League-high 158 total blocks, including 50 solo, and was a two-time Defensive Player of the Week selection in 2009-10.
On the men’s side, a Coastal Carolina student-athlete has won the award in three of the last four years and six times overall. Fleet is the first Big South baseball player to be honored since current Minnesota Twins pitcher Kevin Slowey (Winthrop) in 2004-05.
An ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA first team Academic All-America in 2010, Fleet is the first Big South Conference baseball player to earn first team honors since 1995. He went 6-2 with a League-best eight saves and a 2.85 ERA in 31 appearances this past season, helping the Chanticleers to a perfect 25-0 mark in Big South play and a trip to the NCAA Super Regional. He also struck out 57 batters in 60 innings pitched. Fleet graduated from Coastal in the spring of 2009 with a degree in business management, and the 3.78 GPA student is pursuing a second degree in recreation and sports management. A 16th-round draft choice of the San Francisco Giants this past June, Fleet earned the win in the Big South Tournament championship game against Liberty, allowing just two hits in 3.1 innings. Other 2010 season highlights include a win over Michigan on March 14, in which he allowed just three hits and no runs in six innings. He also earned the win at Clemson on March 31 with 4.1 innings of hitless relief. Fleet, who allowed just 11 extra-base hits this past season, had 25 strikeouts in 20.1 innings of work in Big South contests.
