SUWANEE, GA - The Division III Commissioners Association released its regional award winners on Monday with Johns Hopkins' Abby Birk receiving Region V Student-Athlete of the Year honors.
Birk, a former field hockey standout for the Blue Jays, is one of 20 recipients of the second annual DIIICA Student-Athlete of the Year award, which is presented to graduating student-athletes who have distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate career in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, service, and leadership.
Each of the winners will advance to the national ballot for consideration for 2022-23 D3CA Men's Sport Student-Athlete of the Year and Women's Sport Student-Athlete of the Year.
Birk was also named a Centennial nominee for the NCAA Woman of the Year award earlier this summer. A midfielder for the JHU field hockey team, Birk wrapped up her career as one of the most decorated players in program and Centennial Conference history. The Louisville, KY native was a three-time All-America selection by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA), earning first team accolades in both 2021 and 2022 and third team honors in 2019. She was the first three-time All-American and first two-time first-team honoree in Hopkins program history, and one of just seven field hockey players in Centennial history to earn NFHCA All-America accolades three times.
Hopkins reached the NCAA Final Four each of her four seasons (2018, 2019, 2021, 2022) with two national runner-up finishes (2021, 2022), and posted the four winningest seasons in program history with a 79-11 (.878) record during her career, including a 39-1 (.975) mark in Centennial play that included four CC titles. Individually, Birk holds the JHU records for career assists (44), game-winning goals (14), games played (90) and games started (84). She also ranks second in JHU history with 128 points and third with 42 goals. In the Centennial record book, she ranks fourth in assists, seventh in game-winning goals and is one of 33 players in conference history with more than 100 career points.
Birk was equally accomplished in the classroom and through her work in the community. A public health studies and medicine, science & the humanities major, Birk finished her undergraduate studies with a 3.76 cumulative grade point average before enrolling in the maternal and child health certificate program in JHU's Bloomberg School of Public Health. As an aspiring physician, Birk worked as a clinical research coordinator at the Monochorionic TWIN Lab at the Johns Hopkins Center for Fetal Therapy, volunteered as a research assistant at the Johns Hopkins Clinical ARVD/C Program, served as a summer emergency room volunteer at Norton's Children's Hospital in her hometown of Louisville, and mentored fellow JHU undergraduate students as a study consultant. She was also a member of Blue Jays LEAD, a group that focuses on empowering student-athletes to lead and inspire action in their communities, as well as serving as the field hockey representative on the campus Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).
Birk earned a number of academic honors, headlined by becoming the first two-time Academic All-American in program history by the College Sports Communicators (CSC / formerly CoSIDA). She also received an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, earned NFHCA National Academic Team honors four times, was named to the CC Academic Honor Roll four times, and received the 2022 Robert H. Scott Award, presented annually to the JHU senior student-athlete who demonstrates excellence in athletics, scholarship, and extracurricular participation throughout their career.
Voting was conducted by the commissioners within each of the ten regions, with the top male and female honoree recognized as finalists for the Awards Committee to select the Division III Commissioner's Association Men's Sport and Women's Sport Student-Athlete of the Year. The two national winners will be announced later this month.
