BATON ROUGE — A pair of pitchers for LSU and a pair of hitters for Northwestern State took the honors for the season’s first Louisiana Sports Writers Association College Baseball and Softball players of the Week.
LSU baseball pitcher Lane Mestepey and softball hurler Britni Sneed were named the pitchers of the week while Demons Ed Linck in baseball and Jana Strickland in softball were named the hitters of the week in their respective sports.
Mestepey, a sophomore lefthander, allowed just one run on five hits over eight innings to earn a 10-2 victory over Long Beach State on Saturday.
Mestepey struck out a career-high eight batters while walking none as he upped his record to 5-0 in 10 career starts vs. non-SEC competition. This year, he is 2-0 with a 3.25 ERA.
Sneed only had one appearance on the cold, rain shortened weekend of the Purple and Gold Classic, but she made the most of it, firing a complete game one-hitter to lead LSU to a 3-0 softball victory over Alabama-Birmingham.
She tied an LSU seven-inning record by striking out 14 batters while walking only one.
On the hitting side, Northwestern’s Ed Linck, the Demons first baseman, batted .600 (6-10) on the week as Northwestern State took came of Grambling, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Arkansas-Little Rock and Louisiana Tech. He scored seven runs, had 10 RBI with three home runs, a double, two base on balls and a stolen base. The senior had two homers in the second inning against Grambling, a solo shot and a grand slam.
Strickland in earning softball hitter of the week honors, hit .600 on the weekend as well with one run scored on the home run hit in the second game of the series with Texas-San Antonio. She had six total bases and a 1.200 slugging percentage. She is eight-for-nine in stolen bases and scored 12 runs on 13 hits on the season.
The softball-baseball players of the week are chosen based on weekly nominations by the SIDs of the various state schools. The baseball players of the week are voted on by a media panel of LSWA members while the softball players of the week are chosen by a vote of the state softball SIDs.