King of the Diamond: Union shortstop earns NAIA All-American honors

Published 1:05 pm Monday, June 10, 2019

BARBOURVILLE — Union College senior Juli King added one more thing to her record-setting season: NAIA All-American.

The NAIA announced the awards on Tuesday, and the team was selected by the NAIA All-America committee. King earned an NAIA All-American Honorable Mention and joins Ashley Wojnowski as the only players in program history to receive this award. Wojnowski earned hers in 2014.

The Bulldog shortstop piled up some impressive numbers, most notably:

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• Program-record batting average of .486 – previous mark was .439 set in 2003;

• 25-game hitting streak – seventh-longest in NAIA history;

• 132 consecutive at-bats without a strikeout – NAIA record;

• Struck out only once during the entire 2019 season – the second player in NAIA history to do so.

King also racked up 71 hits, 45 runs, 11 doubles, one triple, two home runs and 29 RBIs. She stole 17 bases and owned an on-base percentage of .516. Her batting average ranked 15th in the NAIA.

The All-American award is another in a laundry list of accolades King has garnered this year. The honors she has received this season include:

• Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) Player of the Year;

• All-AAC First Team;

• AAC Player of the Week, twice;

• NAIA Player of the Week;

• NFCA NAIA All-Region II Second Team;

• Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athlete;

• AAC All-Academic Team;

• CoSIDA Google Cloud Academic All-America NAIA Softball Second Team;

• CoSIDA Google Cloud Academic All-District NAIA Softball First Team.

Union finished the season 31-21 overall and 20-6 in the Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) to earn the No. 2 seed in the league tournament.