Female Athlete of the Year: Kat Sharkey

Sharkey scored a nation-high 33 times in 19 games, nearly half a goal per game more often than any other Division I player. She has always had a knack for finding the cage; she netted 15 goals in her rookie season and 21 as a sophomore, but she took her production to new heights in 2010.

“She’s become capable of getting a shot off wherever and whenever she wants to,” head coach Kristen Holmes-Winn said of her top scorer. “She got more chances this year because she knew how to get open.”

Sharkey surpassed the previous program record of 30 goals with a hat trick in a 10-0 home rout of Penn to end the regular season. She is only two goals shy of the career record and could reach the century mark with a strong senior season. Her 74 points in 2010 was also the best in Princeton history.

The junior was one of nine All-Ivy players and four All-America honorees on the Tigers, who were ranked in the top 10 for the entire season. Princeton went 7-0 in Ivy League play, aided by Sharkey’s 17 goals in those games, to claim its 16th conference championship in 17 years.

For her efforts, the junior was named Ivy League Player of the Year, adding to an impressive list of accolades. Sharkey was selected as Rookie of the Year in 2008 and made the first-team All-Ivy in each of her three seasons. She has been named All-America three times, including a pair of first-team awards, and was one of four nominees for this year’s Honda Award for field hockey, given annually to the nation’s top player.

Though the striker is best-known for her scoring ability, she notched two assists in one of the Tigers’ biggest games. In late September, the Tigers hosted then-No. 1 Maryland, which boasted a 36-game regular-season winning streak and ended Princeton’s season the year before. Sharkey assisted junior midfielder Katie Reinprecht twice in a four-minute span to give the Tigers a 2-0 lead and added a second-half goal as Princeton held on for a 4-2 upset.

Sharkey earned national attention in the team’s second contest of the season, netting six goals on just 10 shots in a 7-1 victory at Richmond. The double hat trick shattered the previous Princeton record of four goals in a game and was the best single-game Division I effort in 2010.

With Reinprecht, a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year, sidelined with an injury at the end of the regular season, Sharkey carried an even bigger load for the Tigers. She scored eight goals in four games, three of them Ivy League victories, to clinch the conference title.

“Kat really stepped up when Katie left and put a lot on her shoulders,” Holmes-Winn said.

“It required Kat to take on more of a defensive role, which could have taken away from her scoring, but she was able to balance it really well.”

Off the field, Sharkey brought what her coach described as a “joyful” atmosphere to the locker room.

“She’s so enthusiastic; she just wants to have fun,” Holmes-Winn said. “But when it’s go time, she has an amazing ability to have fun but also be really intense and really focused.”

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For this joyful energy and for her record-setting accomplishments on one of the nation’s top teams, Kat Sharkey is the 2011 Daily Princetonian Female Athlete of the Year.