NEW YORK, N.Y. - For the first time in 11 years, a Purchase College baseball player has earned the title of Skyline Conference Player of the Year.

On Wednesday, Liam Daly (JR/Babylon, NY) took home the prize, as the D3Baseball.com Preseason All-American more than lived up to the lofty expectations in 2025.

Over 34 games, he led the Skyline in batting average (.487), hits (57) and OPS (1.342), while finishing second in home runs (7), RBIs (45) and slugging (.795).

Entering the day, Daly held the second-best batting average in all of NCAA Division III athletics too, as he continued to improve on his record-breaking season from a year ago.

Over his career, Liam has increased his batting average all three years, going from a .403 hitter as a first-year, to .441 last year and all the way up to .487 this season.

With the remarkable hitting, he became the first Panther since Michael Sarni '14 back in 2014 to collect the distinguished honor, and just the third Purchase player ever to win it.

Head coach Adam Taraska had nothing but praise for his first baseman saying, "He earned it and deserves this recognition. He was the best player in the conference."

Taraska went on to emphasize that while he knew Daly was a talented prospect, in the end, recruiting takes a certain level of "being lucky" to land a prospect of this degree.

"You hope that when you are recruiting, every one of your recruits is capable of winning Player of the Year, and when it does happen, you realize just how special it is."

Further proof of how special the 2025 campaign was for Liam, comes from digging deeper into his numbers.

At the plate, he recorded a hit in 28 of 34 games, including 20 multi-hit outings. He also struckout just nine times out of 117 at-bats, meaning he rarely gave away chances and always kept the defense working.

On the base path, Daly was just as stellar going a perfect 16-for-16 stolen bases. And for his fielding, he was nearly perfect as he totaled a .987 fielding percentage with just three errors on 227 outs at first base.

Throughout the last eight weeks, Daly was recognized three times by the conference (1x Player of the Week and 2x Honor Roll), before being named to the All-Skyline First Team and of course, Player of the Year to closeout the season.

As the rest of the awards season begins to wrap up, while never a guarantee, don't be surprised to see more accolades for Daly roll in over the coming weeks.

Over his three-year career, Daly has become a walking record book for the Blue and Orange, totaling career numbers of:

• .441 batting average
• 176 hits
• 22 home runs
• 73 extra base hits
• 115 RBIs
• 55 stolen bases

In terms of his journey in arriving at Purchase, Taraska said Daly's recruiting was actually one of, if not the easiest one of his career. "The first time I saw him (Daly) play, he hit two home runs, so I talked to him and dad right after the game, we setup a campus visit and the rest is history."

"He committed not long after that, I think it took maybe a week for him to commit to the program ... It is ironic and funny, because he's the best player I have ever recruited and he was in essence, the easiest I ever had too."

As for 2026 and beyond, Coach Taraska continued to shine the spotlight on his star prospect. "(Daly) has gotten better each year he has been here, that is true. And I still think he can be even better."

How much better remains to be seen, but for the 2025 campaign, there is no doubt who the Skyline Conference Player of the Year was - Purchase College first baseman, Liam Daly.