Pearl River High School
Class of 1991

Kristen McGarvey Miedreich is second-generation Pearl River athletic royalty. Her dad, Frank, is a former athlete and coach at Pearl River and a member of the Pearl River Sports Hall of Fame. It was a hard act to follow but Kristen’s athletic accomplishments are second to none.  Former Pearl River athletic director and sports historian Tom Doherty describes Kristen as “the best all-around female athlete that I have seen in my almost 50 years observing Pearl River sports.”
In the fall Kristen spent her time on the soccer field, playing JV as a freshman but jumping up and starting on the varsity from her sophomore year on.  In that sophomore year Kristen was the leading scorer on the girls’ soccer team, a feat she accomplished again in her junior and senior years.  She was first-team All-League as a junior and first-team All-League and All-Section and honorable mention All-County as a senior. Kristen was also selected to the Pearl River All- Tournament team as a senior. 

During the winter Kristen excelled on the basketball team by being a varsity starter all four seasons for the Lady Pirates. In her sophomore year she was selected first-team All-League and made the All-Tournament team at the Pearl River Tournament, plus she received the Sportsmanship Award at the Sacred Heart Tournament. But that was just a start. As a junior Kristen scored 63 points in a single game, which was a Rockland County record and ranked, at the time (1990), as the third-highest ever in New York State girls’ basketball. She was selected first-team All-League, All-County and All-Section, and honorable mention All-State.  She was named as the MVP of the team as well as to the Pearl River All-Tournament team.  As a senior Kristen repeated as first-team All-League, All-County and All-Section and was selected as fourth-team All-State. She was named to the All-Tournament teams at both the Pearl River and Tappan Zee tournaments, and finished the season with 111 assists, 17 three-point baskets, 199 rebounds and 432 points for a 20.5 points-per-game average.  Career-wise, Kristen scored 1,159 points, which at the time ranked her as No. 8 all-time in Rockland County girls’ basketball. She topped it all off by being voted the PRHS Athlete of the Season Award Winner for WRKL.

In the spring of her freshman year Kristen spent her time and energy playing recreational softball for the Town of Orangetown softball team, but sometime during her sophomore year she discovered track and field.  During the next three years Kristen ran faster, jumped higher and farther than anyone in Rockland County and was one of the main reasons the Pearl River girls’ track and field team was the League, County and Section 1 champion all three years. As a sophomore she was named County and League champion in the high jump and League champion in the 100-meter hurdles. In her junior year Kristen added All-League honors as the triple jump champion to go along with her high jump and hurdles League championships. Being a great teammate, Kristen was a member of the Rockland County record-setting 300- and 400-meter shuttle hurdles relay championship team plus she set school records in the 100-meter hurdles and the pentathlon. In Kristen’s senior year she won the League and Section championships in the 100-meter hurdles, was the Rockland County champion in the high jump and first-team All- County in the pentathlon. Along with being voted as the team MVP, Kristen was again selected as the PRHS Athlete of the Season award winner for WRKL.

Kristen graduated from Pearl River High School in 1991 and enrolled at Mitchell College in New London, Conn., to continue her education and athletic career.  She was a two-year starter on the women’s soccer team as well as on the women’s basketball team. During Kristen’s two years on the basketball team the Pequots (now called the Mariners) were at one time ranked first in the country by the National Junior College Weekly Poll and had an outstanding record of 61-3. In her sophomore year the basketball team finished sixth in the National Junior College championships.  After two years at Mitchell, Kristen transferred to St. Thomas Aquinas College right here in Rockland County to finish her education and athletic career. In her junior year she started on the women’s soccer team and was the Spartans’ leading scorer. In the winter Kristen tried out and won a starting position on St Thomas’s women’s basketball team. She started 22 games and averaged 9 points and 5 rebounds a game. Kristen scored 24 points in one game and was an outstanding defensive player who led the team with 57 steals. She was selected MVP of the St. Thomas Aquinas basketball tournament and helped her team to the finals of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference championships. In the 1994-95 school year, Kristen’s senior season, she decided to concentrate on just one sport, basketball. That season St. Thomas had an undefeated league record of 12-0 and a regular season record of 26-3, the best in school history, and Kristen led her team to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Division II National Championship Tournament. She was the sixth-leading scorer on the team with an average of 8.6 points per game, fourth-leading rebounder with a 6.3 average per game, and the top shot blocker on the team with 44. Kristen was the top defensive player on the team and always guarded the opponent’s leading scorer. St. Thomas finished the season as the No. 11 team according to the national ranking in the final NAIA Division II regular-season poll.

Kristen resides in Pearl River with her husband of 20 years, Kevin, a former basketball and baseball standout at STAC who was a 12th-round draft pick for the St. Louis Cardinals. The Miedreichs have three children: Kayleigh, 18, a member of Pearl River’s 2017 state championship soccer team and currently a freshman at the University of Delaware; Corinne, 17, a junior at Pearl River; and Kelsey, 11, a sixth-grader at Pearl River Middle School. All three children are multi-sport athletes like their mom.

Kristen works as a certified personal trainer at Vision Sports Club in Pearl River. She was inducted into the Pearl River High School Sports Hall of Fame in 2000 individually and also in 2017 as part of the 1989 girls’ spring track championship team.