Meet Ben Rice's girlfriend Sara Falkson, the Harvard engineer who was a college-level hockey player

On the baseball field, Ben Rice is dominating in his first full season in the big leagues. The New York Yankees star has been a revelation since hitting .171 with -0.4 bWAR last season. This year, Rice, who doesn't play every day, is hitting .255 with a .920 OPS (15th-best in baseball) and has 1.0 bWAR already.

Rice's exploits on the field has a lot of fans wondering about his off-the-field ventures. The 26-year-old is dating Sara Falkson, who is a pretty accomplished woman in her own right.

The Yankees star's girlfriend is currently working on her engineering degree from the prestigious Harvard University. Before that, she worked at IBM's Data & AI organization for two years.

Falkson graduated Cum Laude from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in human-centered design, cultural anthropology, and digital arts. Just like Rice, she was into sports as well.

Falkson was the co-captain of Dartmouth's varsity field hockey team. This gave her a passion for the intersection of women's wellness and technology. Rice also attended Dartmouth before being a 12th-round pick by the Yankees.

MLB analyst buys Ben Rice's hot start

Baseball players can be prone to spurts of excellent play. It's a naturally streaky sport, but even those who never do much at the big-league level can have moments or streaks where they look like stars.

Ben Rice could be considered in one of those streaks now, especially after being so bad last year. The Yankees, based on the analytics, believed that he was getting unlucky and that his swings and contact were good.

This year, in for the injured Giancarlo Stanton, Rice has proven them right. Is it just a hot streak, or is Rice legitimate? One MLB analyst believes he's the real deal and isn't going to fade.

The underlying metrics are good. Rice ranks 12th among all MLB players in hard-hit percentage. He's doing that more often than Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, and Fernando Tatis Jr.

Right now, his OPS against left-handed pitchers is under .600. If he became a platoon DH or platoon first-baseman, that might change in Zachary D. Rymer's eyes:

"The only thing holding him back is the exposure to left-on-left matchups. For the Yankees, that could be easily fixed as soon as Giancarlo Stanton is back."

The Yankees did just transfer Stanton to the 60-day Injured List, but he could be back sooner since he's been on the IL since before the season began.

About the author

Zachary is a journalist covering NFL, Professional Golf, esports, and Major League Baseball at Sportskeeda. He has a degree in writing/editing from Southern Adventist University (USA), and in his spare time, he likes to play games such as Minecraft, Pokémon and Fortnite, or watch sports.

Ever since he was a youth football wide receiver, Zachary has been an avid NFL fan. He loves the Carolina Panthers, with Cam Newton being his all-time favorite player (with respect to the close second, Steve Smith). If you ever meet Zachary, prepare to hear all about how underrated Newton was and how he single-handedly dragged the Panthers to Super Bowl 50.

Zachary is also a big fan of top golfers like Tiger Woods, Wyndham Clark, and Scottie Scheffler. He enjoys watching them and hopes that Woods can return to form soon and win again.

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Edited by Satagni Sikder