July 1, 2014
LAS VEGAS (UNLVRebels.com) - Baseball ace Erick Fedde has been named the UNLV Sportsman of the Year for 2013-14, while women's golf star Dana Finkelstein won the Sportswoman of the Year award, UNLV Athletics announced on Tuesday.
Fedde was a junior this past school year and is a native of Las Vegas. He was named the Mountain West Pitcher of the Year and took home Louisville Slugger Second Team All-America honors, becoming the first Rebel to earn All-America honors since Tanner Peters in 2011.
His phenomenal year started last summer as he was named the Midseason Pitcher of the Year in the Cape Cod League. Earning that distinction caught the eye of USA Baseball coach (and former UNLV coach) Jim Schlossnagle, which in turn led to Fedde joining the collegiate national team for its series against Cuba. He became only the fourth UNLV player to don the Red, White and Blue while still attending school.
Fedde came into the season highly touted; as he was named to Baseball America's Preseason All-America Second Team and was the 17th best prospect according to the publication. He lived up to the billing by striking out what at the time was a career-high 11 batters against Central Michigan in the season opener and earned Mountain West Pitcher of the Week honors from that performance.
In 2014, he compiled an 8-2 record to go with a 1.76 earned run average, which is the second-lowest single-season ERA in school history. Fedde struck out 82 batters in 76.2 innings of work and held batters to a .209 batting average.
Despite his season coming to an unexpected end in early May due to an injury, Fedde became the third Rebel drafted in the first round as he was selected 18th overall by the Washington Nationals.
As a Rebel he had a 21-10 record and now owns fourth-lowest career ERA in program history at 3.18. He struck out 231 batters in 263.1 innings of work over the last three years.
Finkelstein is a rising senior Chandler, Ariz. She finished the season ranked 18th by Golfweek and was named the Mountain West Golfer of the Year for the second straight year. She was also named to the Golfweek's All-America Second Team and the Women's Golf Coaches Association All-America Second Team.
Her spectacular junior campaign also started in the summer of 2013 when she advanced to the Round of 32 in the Women's Western Golf Association's 113th National Amateur Championship.
Coming into the season she was named one of Golf World magazine's Top 50 Female Players to Watch. She proved the publication correct by capturing her first collegiate victory in the season-opening tournament, the Colonel Bill Wollenberg's Ptarmigan Ram Classic, in Fort Collins, Colo.
Finkelstein picked up her second collegiate victory in the first tournament of the spring, the Peg Barnard Invitational, in Palo Alto, Calif. She placed in the top-five in seven tournaments, which included three runner-up finishes.
Finkelstein became the second golfer in school history to qualify for the NCAA Championship as an individual after finishing tied for second at the Central Regional. She went on to finish tied for 33rd in the championship event and was able to record the first hole-in-one of her career in the opening round of the tournament.
After the season, she traveled to Switzerland and played with Team USA in the World University Golf Championship. She helped the Americans earn a second-place finish in the tournament and individually she finished ninth overall and sixth amongst all amateurs.
Finkelstein led the Mountain West with an average score of 72.11, which is the lowest single-season average in program history. She will take a 73.77 career average, which is the third lowest in UNLV history, into her senior campaign.
The UNLV Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year awards are presented annually to the athletics department's top male and female athletes, taking only athletic performance during the past year into account.
