Kirchberg Named First-Team All-Big Ten
May 09, 2002 | Softball
Wisconsin softball junior Andrea Kirchberg was one of two pitchers to earn first-team All-Big Ten accolades, announced at the league's championship banquet on Thursday. Kirchberg, who shared first-team honors with 2002 Pitcher of the Year Marissa Young of Michigan, is 20-14 this season and boasts a 1.36 earned run average while leading the conference with 282 strikeouts.
Michigan's second pitcher, Nicole Motycka, was named Freshman of the Year while Ohio State's Wendy Allen earned Player of the Year honors and Buckeye coach Linda Kalafatis was named Coach of the year.
UW's 2002 Most Valuable Player, Kirchberg tops the individual season and career columns in nearly every pitching category at Wisconsin. She tied her own single-game record of 15 strikeouts twice this season and her 282 Ks this year rank second all-time behind her UW record of 299 in 2000. Kirchberg earned Big Ten Player of the Week honors twice this year, including the final award of the regular season after she won three games against UW-Green Bay and Northwestern, striking out 39 batters while allowing just seven hits and one run.
Kirchberg is the Badgers' second player to earn first-team All-Big Ten honors, joining Julie Borchard who earned the honor at shortstop in 1999.
Wisconsin (31-19 overall) will meet Illinois for their second game of the tournament at 8:30 a.m. Central on Friday.
