BATON ROUGE, La. – LSU freshman right-handed pitcher Sydney Smith was named the SEC Pitcher of the Week the conference announced on Monday, giving the Maple Grove, Minnesota, native her first league weekly award of her career on the final week the award is given out.
It’s the fifth SEC award bestowed on an LSU player this season, following Sahvanna Jaquish who was named the player of the week for the second time last week and Bianka Bell earning the award back in March. The other award winner was Carley Hoover, who was named the pitcher of the week also in March.
Smith earned both of LSU’s wins in the circle against a ranked Washington team that came into the weekend with the eighth-best batting average in the nation, and holding the Huskies to just a single run on 11 hits in 13.2 innings of work in the circle.
Washington had not been shut out all year until Smith twirled her seventh of the season in the opener, holding Washington to just three hits with four strikeouts. In the finale, she came off the bench in relief and pitched the final 6.2 innings in a thriller, holding Washington to just a single run and scattering eight hits as LSU rallied to win 5-4 in nine innings.
Smith has won five-straight decisions, and until Washington scored its lone run of the weekend against the freshman on Sunday in the seventh, she had gone 31.2 innings without giving up an earned run.
LSU will be back in action on Wednesday afternoon, taking on the Texas A&M Aggies in the opening round of the 2016 SEC Softball Tournament at Nusz Park in Starkville.
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