When told that she was to be inducted this fall into Kent County High School’s Hall of Fame, Bekah Baker said “proud is an understatement of how lucky I am to be a KCHS alumna.”
Bekah said Kent County High School gave her the opportunity to find out how much passion she had for a team, a community that was “so tiny but so powerful at the same time.”
She might as well have been talking about herself. As a 5-foot-3 dynamo, Bekah was the MVP on the Trojans’ Class 1A East Region championship softball team in 2010 and their 1A East Region championship basketball team in 2012.
She also was a first-team All-Mid-Shore honoree and MVP on the Trojans’ 2011 field hockey team.
She further distinguished herself as the outstanding female athlete in the KCHS Class of 2012.
Bekah was one of five athletes inducted into Kent County High School’s Hall of Fame on Saturday, Oct. 18.
The Evening Enterprise is telling their stories, one at a time, in the order of their year of graduation.
Bekah earned three varsity letters in field hockey as both a forward and the demanding position of center midfielder.
She was a starting outfielder on the 2010 softball team that has the distinction of winning the program’s first and to date only region championship.
In the region final, No. 4 seed Kent County upset No. 3 seed and host Mardela, 7-2. Bekah had two hits in that game, including a two-out RBI single in the third inning that produced the first run.
KCHS went on to finish 13-9, its six-game winning streak halted by North Region champion Perryville in the state semifinals, 4-0. Bekah’s infield single with two outs in the fourth inning was the Trojans’ only hit through six innings; they got one more hit in the seventh.
Coincidentally, Kent County’s region title in basketball in 2012 also came at the expense of Mardela, 60-55. Bekah led the winning effort with 19 points, five assists and five steals.
The No. 2 seed in the 10-school 1A East Region tournament, Kent received a first-round bye, and then eliminated Cambridge, 64-47, and Pocomoke, 67-33, in the span of three days to meet No. 1 seed and two-time defending champion Mardela.
Bekah’s line in the Pocomoke game included 10 points, five assists and seven rebounds.
The championship game was played at the Wicomico County Youth & Civic Center in Salisbury, making it more of a home game for Mardela.
The Warriors (20-3) led by as many as eight points late in the third period, and held a 46-40 advantage with eight minutes to play.
But the underdog Trojans owned the fourth quarter, closing the game on a 20-9 run.
Bekah scored eight of her team-high 19 points in the final frame.
Kent County, which sent out only six players in this game, took the lead for good at 52-51 with 3:31 to play.
Mardela closed to 54-53 on a pair of free throws at 2:07, before Bekah delivered the knockout punch — a lights-out 3-pointer from the top of the key with no time left on the 30-second shot clock, followed by another fast-break basket that extended Kent’s lead to 59-53 with 1:14 remaining.
She hit the front end of a two-shot foul with all but 13.1 seconds gone to seal the win.
Eventual state champion Dunbar (20-6) eliminated Kent (18-5) in the state semifinals, 84-43 — though Kent’s 43 points bettered the 32.1 average that Dunbar had allowed in its previous 24 games.
NCAA Division II Limestone College in South Carolina won the bidding war for Bekah, who was recruited to play both field hockey and softball. She was awarded a scholarship that covered all of her tuition and most of her living expenses.
Several Division I coaches actively recruited her, but only for field hockey.
She opted for a DII school because, she said at the time, she “didn’t want to let go of softball.”
Bekah played field hockey and softball in her freshman and sophomore years, before concentrating solely on field hockey as a junior and senior.
She was an All-Eastern College Athletic Conference first-team honoree in field hockey in 2014 and 2015, a member of the 2014 and 2015 ECAC tournament championship teams, and earned all-tournament honors in 2015.
Bekah scored the winning goal in the 2015 ECAC championship game in Louisville, Kentucky, where Limestone (17-3) rallied from a 2-0 halftime deficit to overtake host Bellarmine in overtime, 3-2. Bekah’s golden goal came off a fast-break with 2 minutes, 15 seconds elapsed in extra time.
She capped an all-star collegiate career with selection to the National Field Hockey Coaches Association Division II Senior Game in 2015.
Overall, she appeared in 73 games with 53 starts. Her line included 17 goals, 11 assists and 45 points.
After graduating in 2016 from Limestone with a liberal arts degree, Bekah earned certification as a teacher and subsequently a master’s degree in education. She was employed by Kent County Public Schools for eight years, from 2017 to 2025, and is now enrolled in the nursing program at Chesapeake College.
Bekah lives in Rock Hall, near her siblings and parents. Her family includes children ages 1, 3 and 8, a fiancé and two “bonus boys.”
