Mariah Fritz

PELLA — Three-time national champion men’s track and field decathlete Will Daniels and American Rivers Conference softball pitcher of the year Mariah Fritz took the male and female athlete of the year awards to cap the Central College Student-Athlete Advisory Council’s (SAAC) Dutchies program on Sunday night.

The fifth annual Dutchies program was staged virtually to recognize the best in Dutch athletics from April 1, 2019, to March 15, 2020.

With a pitching staff short on numbers, the softball team rode Fritz’s right arm to a dramatic late-season surge for a conference title and NCAA tournament berth in the spring of 2019. The East Marshall graduate was 20-9, throwing 172 innings and recording all 12 of Central’s conference wins.