ST. JOSEPH, Minn. – In any given year, Ally Hjort and Megan Thompson's credentials would have made it easy to choose them as CSB's Rookie of the Year.
 
Thompson played a key role in two sports at the College of Saint Benedict as a first year, and earned MIAC honors in both, including the league's soccer Rookie of the Year. Hjort excelled at her sport and earned two major MIAC awards. Both helped their respective teams to their best seasons in several years.
 
So instead of trying to pick one athlete to earn the college's top honor for a first year, the CSB athletic department announced Friday that Hjort and Thompson earned co-Rookie of the Year honors for the 2017-18 season.
 
This is the first time since 2007-08 that a pair of athletes have shared the honor, but 2017-18 also marked the first time in CSB history the college had two athletes earn MIA Rookie of the Year honors in their respective sports. From 2010-17, CSB had two MIAC Rookie of the Year award winners, and Hjort and Thompson helped double that number.
 
Thompson stormed onto the scene for CSB athletics first with the soccer program, then with the basketball team. She scored four goals – likely a school record – in the first soccer game of her collegiate career and earned MIAC Athlete of the Week honors. Throughout the course of the season, she led the team with seven goals – including three game-winning goals – and 18 points. She tied for sixth in the MIAC in goals and eighth in total points.
 
At the end of the season, Thompson won MIAC Rookie of the Year honors – the first for the school since Kim Lidstone won the honor for the softball team in 2013. She was also named the team's Rookie and Attacker of the Year.
 
Thompson continued her stellar first season on the basketball court. She finished the year third on the team in scoring at 8.1 points per game, and third on the team with a .361 three-point percentage. Thompson, who helped run the point for CSB as a first year, helped lead the team to its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2009. For her contributions to the basketball team, she earned All-MIAC Honorable Mention and a spot on the All-MIAC First Year Team. She is one of just five CSB basketball players to earn All-MIAC and first year honors in the same season.
 
Hjort was equally as impressive on the softball field for CSB this season. In her first complete game, she gave up no runs and just three hits while striking out eight batters to help the team beat Nebraska Wesleyan 4-0. She only got better from there, and gave up just three earned runs in her first seven appearances.
 
At one points early in the season, Hjort was third in Division III with a 0.33 ERA. She finished the year first in the MIAC and 24^th in the nation with a 1.33 ERA. She finished fifth in the MIAC with 88 strikeouts, including a career-high 10 strikeouts in a nine-inning loss to No. 11 St. John Fisher in Arizona. She threw a complete-game no-hitter against Augsburg on April 18 – the first in recent memory for CSB softball.
 
Hjort went 12-5 in 23 appearances, and threw 105.1 innings. She gave up just 20 earned runs, and her opponents had a batting average of just .223.
 
At the end of the season, Hjort was recognized both by the conference and nationally. She was named the MIAC Rookie of the Year and Pitcher of the Year, and also earned a spot on the All-MIAC First Team. She is the first CSB athlete to earn two major MIAC awards in the same season. A few days later, she also earned NFCA All-Region First Team honors.
 
Thanks to Hjort's MIAC dominance – she had a 0.75 ERA and finished 8-1 in conference play – CSB made it to the championship game of the MIAC Tournament for the first time since 2004. The team earned an NCAA Tournament berth for the first time since 1994, and went 2-2 and made it to the regional championship game at the Decorah, Iowa Regional.