More honors for Baseball's Robinson, SB's Bye

June 20, 2008

Two more honors have come in for St. Thomas spring-sport All-Americans Lonnie Robinson and Maria Bye.

Robinson was named NCAA Midwest Region Pitcher of the Year, while Bye has been chosen as the MIAC's nominee for the NCAA Woman of the Year award.

Robinson, who earned third-team All-America by the ABCA, finished 8-1 with a 2.94 ERA and 70 strikeouts and just 13 walks in 64.1 innings. He held opposing batter to a .212 average and beat nationally-ranked UW-Oshkosh twice season season, including a 3-1 win in the NCAA regional. He was named D-III National Pitcher of Week on April 2. He shutout Oshkosh and Salve Regina in March. He's had four consecutive complete-game wins in the last 18 days of the season to help UST clinch conference regular-season and playoff championships. He had a 5-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio this spring and closed with a 21-3 career W-L record. Robinson is a starter on Tommie basketball/baseball teams that have won all seven conference titles and six of seven conference postseason titles.   The NCAA Woman of the Year program honors senior student-athletes for their cumulative collegiate achievements in service, leadership, athletics and academics.

Bye (SR-Maple Plain/Orono) is in elite company as she is one of only a few student-athletes in any sport to be a three-time first-team All-America, three-time first-team CoSIDA Academic All-America, and a member of a national championship team.

This spring, Bye was named Softball's College Division Academic All-American of the Year by ESPN the Magazine and the College Sports Information Diretors of America (CoSIDA). Bye, who has a 3.93 GPA in Biochemistry, was also named the College Sporting News MIAC Female Student-Athlete of the Year.

In Bye's four-year era, St. Thomas went 175-19, including a 98-2 mark vs. conference foes. She batted .403 over 173 games witrh 37 homers, 175 RBI, 192 hits, 133 runs, 80 walks, 32 doubles and just nine errors in 460 chances. As a pitcher in 127 career appearances she had a 4-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio with 702 strikeouts and 175 walks in 534 innings, and finished 85-10 with an 0.99 ERA. She held opposing batters to a .144 average. The Tommies were NCAA champion and NCAA runner-up in 2005 and 2006 and her teams ranked in the top three in nation all four years.

Bye was a four-time all-conference honoree and swept the MIAC regular-season awards (Pitcher and Player of the Year) two years in a row. She started all 145 games over her last three seasons. She became the first player in Division III history to record 85 wins and 700 strikeouts as a pitcher and hit more than 35 home runs as a batter. 

The team captain, was also heavily involved away from the field and the classroom. She participated in the Aquinas Scholars Program, was a youth softball coach, a member of the student-athlete advisory committee, was a campus resident advisor, and was a campus microbiology research assistant. Bye also volunteered at the Dorothy Day Homeless Shelter, the University of Minnesota Hospital, and the Up Til Dawn Fundraiser for St. Jude's Hospital.

Lonnie Robinson

Maria Bye