Hawks Sweep SUNYAC Weekly Awards, DeKams and Stith Garner Honors

FREDONIA, NY — The SUNY New Paltz baseball team took both the Player and Pitcher of the Week honors for the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC), for the week ending March 26. Sophomore Jeff Stith (Selden, NY) took Pitcher of the Week honors, as teammate, junior third baseman; John DeKams (Kings Park, NY) earned recognition as Player of the Week.

Stith picked up two victories in two starts to help the Hawks to a 5-1 record over the last week. Stith pitched 13 innings of scoreless baseball while only allowing five hits and seven walks to go along with 23 strikeouts. Against Earlham College, on March 20th, Stith pitched six innings, allowed three hits and four walks while striking out 12. He then threw a complete game two-hit shutout against SUNY Purchase for his second win of the week. Against Purchase, Stith struck out 11 and walked only three.

DeKams has carried the hot bat for SUNY New Paltz throughout the early part of their schedule. Over the past week he batted .524 (11-for-21) while collecting four doubles to raise his season slugging percentage to .721. DeKams totaled ten RBI on the week, including the game-tying RBI in a 7-6, extra inning, defeat of Grinnell College on March 23. He went 2-for-4 with a double and four RBI against Earlham on March 20 and went a combined 5-for-6 in the Hawks’ doubleheader against SUNY Purchase on March 26, collecting three doubles and four RBI. DeKams currently leads the Hawks’ offense in batting average (.500), hits (31), doubles (11), triples (1), RBI (26), total bases (47) and slugging percentage (.758).

The SUNY New Paltz baseball team will play their home opener on Wednesday, March 29 against Ithaca College at 3:00 pm.