SUWANEE, Ga. --- In an announcement made this afternoon, Eliza Beaudin of Elmira (N.Y.) College and Ryan Beard of Westminster (Pa.) College were recognized as the inaugural recipients of the Division III Commissioner's Association (DIIICA) Student-Athlete of the Year awards.
The two emerged as the national winners from a pool of 20 regional honorees which were announced earlier in the month.
“It is an honor to recognize both Eliza Beaudin and Ryan Beard as our inaugural Division III Commissioner’s Association Student-Athletes of the Year,” said D3CA Awards Committee chair and Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference commissioner Dwayne Hanberry. “To rise to the top among the thousands of decorated and accomplished student-athletes that our division has to offer is quite the achievement and certainly one worth celebrating.”
Beaudin, a member of the Elmira College women’s hockey team who was also named the 2021-22 Empire 8 Co-Woman of the Year, recently graduated summa cum laude with a cumulative grade-point average of 3.94 as a psychology major. The Lewiston, Maine native and two-year captain was a part of three United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) Tournament Championships (2019, 2020, 2021), while also helping Elmira to New England Hockey Conference (NEHC) Regular Season and Tournament Championships in 2022. The Soaring Eagles finished 84-12-4 in Beaudin's four seasons.
Individually, Beaudin ranks seventh in program history in goals (58) and finished with 119 total points in just 90 games. Her four short-handed goals rank second in program history, while her 13 game-winning goals, 17 power-play goals, and five short-handed goals also rank in the top-10 all-time for Elmira in its storied history.
This season, Beaudin was named a finalist for the Laura Hurd Award, bestowed by the American Hockey Coaches Association (AHCA) Division III Women's Hockey Player of the Year, while she earned CCM/AHCA First Team All-American accolades. Beaudin led the Soaring Eagles and was among the national leaders in scoring with 42 points on 18 goals and 24 assists in 30 games played. She tallied five power-play goals, five shorthanded tallies and was a plus-37 on the season. Beaudin, who served as Elmira's captain in 2021-22, led the Soaring Eagles to a 25-4-1 record and a berth in the NCAA Division III Frozen Four.
Academically, Beaudin earned Dean's List honors in each of her semesters at Elmira, while earning numerous UCHC, Empire 8, ACHA, and NEHC academic honors. The New England Hockey Conference Player of the Year in 2022 also served as the Vice President of Omicron
Delta Kappa (ODK) at Elmira College - the National Leadership Honor's Society, the President of PSI CHI - Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology, as well as the Treasurer of the Active Minds Club along with Phi Eta Sigma. Most recently, Beaudin was named to the 2021-22 CoSIDA Academic All-America® Women's At-Large Team for Division III.
Off the ice, Beaudin excelled as a member of the Elmira community. She served in the Chemung County Public Defender’s Office, was part of the Elmira College Retention Team and Active Minds Club, while coaching Corning Girls Youth Ice Hockey during the 2021-22 season. In addition, Beaudin was a Corning Wineglass Marathon Volunteer, a volunteer for the Elmira Hibernians Club and Food Bank of the Southern Tier.
Beaudin began her collegiate career by enjoying an excellent freshman season in 2018-19, tallying 34 points on 17 goals and 17 assists in 28 games, while earning UCHC All-Rookie Team honors and helping lead the Soaring Eagles to the NCAA Quarterfinals. She garnered All-UCHC second team accolades and led Elmira to the 2019-20 UCHC Championship, despite missing several games due to injury. She finished the season with 14 goals and 23 points in 18 games, before the NCAA Tournament was wiped out due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Beaudin added 20 points in nine goals and 11 assists in 14 games during the shortened 2020-21 season, leading Elmira to its third straight UCHC crown and All-UCHC honorable mention plaudits.
“First off, it is my honor to accept this inaugural award and I am extremely grateful to be recognized by the Division III Commissioner’s Association,” said Beaudin. “Accepting this award would not be possible without the heart of my teammates, so my utmost respect to those girls for pushing me every day.”
“I would also like to thank Elmira College and the Elmira College Athletics Department for the opportunity to play hockey for such a storied women’s ice hockey program. Lastly, thank you to my family for being my number one support system. This award means more than words can express.”
Westminster’s Beard earned College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America® honors after completing a three-year accelerated undergraduate degree in accounting and posting a 4.0 cumulative grade-point average (GPA). He was recognized as Westminster's Most Outstanding Accounting student and was named a Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA) Outstanding Senior Award winner for his service to the community and work in the classroom. Beard was also an Elks National Foundation Legacy Scholarship recipient.
Beard worked with the Westminster Entrepreneurship Center (WEC) as its director of finance, co-developing a competition for high school students, managing and transforming the program's funding strategy by developing ideas for program sponsorships and with the College's Student Equity Group as founder and director of due diligence reports, establishing a student research group that produced six due diligence reports for 412 Venture Fund, creating quality control reviews for all due diligence reports created, training students in conducting market research and copy editing. He also served as a Project Manager at BioHybrid Solutions through the WEC and founded a scholastic competition that the College hosted for high school students, which resulted in 35 percent of the attendees deciding to attend Westminster.
Last summer Beard was one of 10 interns selected from Deloitte's Pittsburgh office to take part
in the Deloitte National Leadership Conference (DNLC), participating in leadership development workshops and networking activities with Deloitte professional staff. He led an initiative to implement Analytic Process Automation at Louis Plung & Company LLP (locally owned certified public accounting firm in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania region) as an intern and also developed the idea to implement Alteryx software, which resulted in more than 200 hours of annual time savings for the firm.
Beard is active in the community, volunteering with the Boy Scouts to help provide free landscaping in preparation for summer campers and with the Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh to clean trash off the streets and organize the food pantry to allow for more efficient delivery of pet food to those in need. He has also worked with Enactus, an international organization that connects student, academic and business leaders through entrepreneurial-based projects that empower people to transform opportunities into real, sustainable progress for themselves and their communities by helping to collect over 400 pounds of bottle caps to repurpose them into furniture, such as benches. He has volunteered with the Elks National Foundation, serving food to military veterans and assisting with the organization's annual golf outing.
At the Division III Championships in May, Beard received the NCAA's Elite 90 award, which recognizes the true essence of the student-athlete by honoring the individual who has reached the pinnacle of competition at the national championship level in his or her sport, while also achieving the highest academic standard among his or her peers. The Elite 90 award is presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative GPA participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA's 90 championships. He is the first Westminster student-athlete to claim the prestigious honor.
Beard earned All-America honors at this year's Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships with a seventh-place finish as a member of 4x100-meter relay (41.38), the first All-America relay in program history.
Beard was a member of Westminster's PAC championship team this spring, earning First Team All-PAC honors as a part of the winning 4x100 and 4x400 relays. Westminster's 4x100 relay posted a meet-record time of 41.27 while the 4x400 relay registered a time of 3:21.52. Individually, he recorded fourth-place finishes in the 100-meter dash (10.89) and 200-meter dash (22.07) at the PAC Championships.
Beard was also a member of the 4x100 relay that set a school record with a time of 40.74 at the University of Mount Union's Last Chance on May 19.
“I'm so thankful to be selected as the inaugural recipient of the Division III Commissioner's Association Men’s Sport Student-Athlete of the Year award,” said Beard. “My successes in the classroom and on the track are owed to God, my wonderful family, coaches, professors, teammates, and everyone else that supported me along the way.”
“Being a Division III student-athlete has provided me with so much joy, and has been instrumental in my development as a young adult. I'm incredibly excited to celebrate this award with all those people that helped me along the way. Go Titans!”
Selection criteria for the DIIICA Student-Athlete of the Year awards included considerations based on academic achievement, athletics excellence, service and leadership and a personal statement submitted by each nominee.
Conferences were permitted to submit two nominations for each award if at least one of the nominations was an international student/ethnic minority. Graduating seniors were the only student-athletes eligible for this award. Selection criteria for the awards included considerations based on academic achievement, athletics excellence, service and leadership and a personal statement submitted by each nominee.
The initial round of voting was conducted by commissioners within each of the ten regions, with the top male and female honoree (including ties) 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.