Saint Louis senior shortstop Alex Nickel has been selected to the Atlantic 10 softball All-Conference first team in balloting conducted by the A-10’s head coaches, the league office announced today.
For a second consecutive season, senior center fielder Mackenzie Peter garnered All-Conference second-team honors.
Nickel and junior third baseman Allie Macfarlane were chosen to the league’s 10-player All-Academic team by A-10 softball sports information representatives. Nickel is an emergency management major with a 3.576 cumulative grade point average, while Macfarlane carries a 3.603 GPA in mechanical engineering.
Saint Louis has placed at least one player on the first team in five straight and seven of the past eight years. In addition, the Billikens have had two student-athletes earn All-Academic plaudits eight times in 12 years of A-10 membership, including four straight and six of the past seven seasons.
Nickel, who collected her second All-Conference nod (second team in 2015), leads Saint Louis in batting average (.367), hits (55), runs (44), triples (six), total bases (98), slugging percentage (.653), walks (28), on-base percentage (.456), sacrifice flies (four) and stolen bases (11). She also has seven home runs, 10 doubles, 29 RBIs, 14 multi-hit games (team-high seven 3-hit games) and eight multi-RBI games. Nickel has committed just six errors and has a career-best .970 fielding percentage.
In all games, Nickel leads the A-10 in triples and is tied for third in sacrifice flies; fifth in slugging percentage, runs and total bases; tied for fifth in walks and assists; and ninth in batting average. She finished third in batting average (.433) and slugging percentage (.746), fourth in on-base percentage (.541) and tied for fourth in home runs (five) in conference games.
Nickel owns Saint Louis career records in batting average (.349), home runs (30), on-base percentage (.462), runs (166), total bases (346), walks (130), sacrifice flies (10) and assists (526).
Peter leads the Billikens with nine home runs (fourth in the A-10), carries a .317 batting average and has 27 RBIs. She also has six doubles, two triples, a .583 slugging percentage, a .424 on-base percentage and five outfield assists.
Peter produced a SLU season-long 13-game hitting streak earlier this year, and she has 11 multi-hit games and five multi-RBI games. One of her multi-hit outings was a three-homer effort vs. Austin Peay, setting the Saint Louis single-game record.
Peter holds SLU career records in doubles (47) and slugging percentage (.596). She ranks among the Billikens’ career top 10 in 10 additional categories including second in batting average (.325), on-base percentage (.435) and total bases (304), third in home runs (27) and walks (86), fourth in runs (115), fifth in hits (166) and sixth in RBIs (98).
Macfarlane has produced career highs in batting average (.347), hits (52), doubles (12), total bases (90) and slugging percentage (.600), and she has tied her career high in home runs (eight). With a team-high 48 RBIs, she needs just three to break her own SLU single-season record of 50 set in 2015. Macfarlane was 29th nationally in RBIs per game (1.02) through games of May 7.
Macfarlane also leads the team in doubles, multi-hit games (19) and multi-RBI games (14). She ranks third in the A-10 in RBIs, fifth in home runs, and tied for fifth in doubles and assists (110).
Macfarlane owns the SLU career record for RBIs (132). She also ranks third in batting average (.317) and slugging percentage (.539), tied for fourth in home runs (23), fifth in on-base percentage (.402), seventh in total bases (243), tied for seventh in sacrifice flies (four), eighth in assists (301), ninth in walks (64) and tied for ninth in doubles (29).
