BATON ROUGE — Louisiana-Lafayette’s Becky McMurtry and LSU’s Kristin Schmidt have been named Louisiana’s softball players of the week following their performances last week, the Louisiana Sports Writer’s Association announced on Thursday.
McMurtry, a senior third baseman from North Platte, Neb., earned the state’s hitter of the week award after hitting .400 (6-for-15) last week at the 17th annual Louisiana Classics hosted by ULL. For the tournament, McMurtry hit four home runs to go with nine RBI. She also added a pair of doubles.
In an 11-0 win over McNeese State, McMurtry went 2-for-4 with a double, a home run and three RBI. She opened the tournament with a double and a home run in a win over Notre Dame.
Schmidt, a junior, earned the pitcher of the week award for Louisiana after posting a 3-0 mark in four appearances last week for the Tigers. Schmidt, a native of Houston, was named most valuable player of the LSU hosted Purple & Gold Challenge after recording a 0.00 earned run average in 20.l innings of work for the Tigers.
In three starts over the weekend for the Tigers, Schmidt tossed three straight shutouts and she did not allow a run in her inning and a third of relief work. In 20-plus innings, she allowed only eight hits and a total of 11 baserunners. She also averaged 8.26 strikeouts per seven innings.
2003 Louisiana Softball Players of the Week
Feb. 17
Julie Wiese (LSU) — hitter
Ashley Bellew (ULM) – pitcher
Feb. 24
LaDonia Hughes (LSU) — hitter
Brooke Mitchell (ULL) — pitcher
March 6
Becky McMurtry (ULL) — hitter
Kristin Schmidt (LSU) — pitcher