BATON ROUGE — Pitchers Lane Mestepey and Britni Sneed of LSU repeat as honorees for their efforts this past week, while Alana Addison of Louisiana Lafayette and Ricky Solis of Northwestern State take top hitting honors in baseball and softball as announced by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association on Wednesday.
The pitcher and hitter of the week in the two sports are chosen based on nominations from the various schools. The softball nominees are voted on by the state softball SIDs, while a panel of media voters selects the baseball players of the week.
Mestepey and Sneed, last week’s inaugural 2002 winners, earned the honors again with outstanding efforts in Baton Rouge.
Mestepey in baseball won his third consecutive start this past Saturday against UL-Monroe, scattering seven hits and giving up one run and no walks over eight innings while striking out five. Mestepey needed only 85 pitches to complete his eight inning of work. The sophomore has not yielded a walk in the last 23 innings and is the first Tigers pitcher to allow one run or less in back-to-back starts since 1997.
Sneed had a record setting weekend against the Florida Gators, setting an LSU record for strikeouts in a 17-inning game with 17 and becoming the 12th player in NCAA history to record 1,000 strikeouts. She now has five straight complete game shutouts and a scoreless streak of 28 innings.
In the hitter of the week category, Solis, the Demons senior shortstop helped Northwestern State to a 4-0 week and a streak now at 11 straight games with a .471 (8-of-17) batting average. He also had three doubles, two RBI and three runs scored with two stolen bases. Highlighting the week was a 3-for-4 game with a double, a run scored and an RBI in the 5-2 eleventh inning win over Texas Southern.
Addison, Louisiana Lafayette’s shortstop was 6-for-9 at the plate this week with three doubles, four RBI and a 1.000 slugging percentage highlighted by a 4-for-5 performance with two doubles and two RBI in a doubleheader sweep of Stephen F. Austin on Friday. The All-American senior improved her team best batting average to .468.