Bluffton senior Kyle Niermann (Napoloeon) was one of eight Heartland Conference baseball players to be recognized by D3Baseball.com following the 2013 season.
Niermann became Bluffton's first baseball player to earn D3Baseball.com All-Mideast Region honors. A First Team Heartland Conference selection for the past three seasons, Niermann was named Second Team All-Mideast Region by the ABCA as a junior.
Leading the HCAC and coming in 12th all-time at Bluffton with a blistering .438 batting average, Kyle Niermann leaves an indelible impression on the record books and baseball program following his storied career with the Beavers.
He led the Beavers to 19, 19 and 21 wins which all set or matched the school record for victories in his final three seasons at Bluffton. His school-record 71 hits place him sixth in the country and the top five have all played more games than Niermann. He is the only Beaver to put together three seasons of at least 60 hits.
Niermann's 37 runs scored, 15 doubles and 90 total bases all place him in the top 10 for a single season. The dean of Bluffton hitting fanned just seven times this season in over 180 plate appearances, or less than four percent of the time.
Niermann became Bluffton's most prolific hitter midway through his final campaign and never slowed down, pushing the school record for hits to 248 and dropping 2012 graduate Tyler Stephenson (215) to #2 all-time, just one season after he went around Brad Buckingham and Tony Moore who shared the mark with 168 safeties.
His .391 career average is seventh all-time while his .535 slugging percentage places him 13th. He finished his career in the top five all-time for games played (146), games started (145), at bats (634), runs scored (142), doubles (49), triples (9), RBI (118), total bases (339). His at bats and total bases are tops all-time for the Beavers.
Niermann was also outstanding on the bases and in the field. His 25 stolen bases are seventh all-time, while his .988 fielding percentage tied him for 11th all-time.
Bluffton crossed the 20-win barrier with a 21-18 mark for the most victories in school history following a season that saw the Beavers complete their first-ever sweep of Mount St. Joseph and win their first Heartland Conference series with Rose-Hulman since the Engineers joined the HCAC in 2006-07.
The Beavers just missed out on their first-ever trip to the Heartland Conference tournament while earning series victories over four HCAC teams in 2013.
