DENVER ? Fresno State’s Kristin Sylvester and New Mexico State’s Kim Watson have been named the Western Athletic Conference Hitter and Pitcher of the Week, respectively. This is the first honor of the season for both.
Sylvester, a junior from Big Bear City, Calif. (Lumen Christi) had a solid week at the plate this past week for the Bulldogs. The junior helped lead Fresno State to a 4-1 mark with a .563 batting average. In five games, she went 9-for-16 with four home runs and eight RBI. Sylvester hit two home runs in the same inning against Ohio on Tuesday night and hit two home runs on Saturday, one in the first game, followed by one in the second game against Nevada. Sylvester had an unbelievable 1.313 slugging percentage, got hit three times and had a .632 on base percentage. Sylvester also scored seven runs in five games.
Watson, a sophomore from Spokane, Wash. (Mead) went 3-0 last week with a minuscule 1.05 ERA. In her 20.0 innings of work, Watson struck out 20 batters, gave up only four runs and just three earned runs and allowed only just 15 hits. She also walked only five batters and her opposing batters hit just .211 off of her. In the Aggies 3-0 win over St. Mary’s on March 19, Watson pitched a complete game shutout, striking out eight batters and allowed just four hits. Watson currently ranks second in the conference in wins (14) and in strikeouts (126) while having the fifth best ERA (2.29) with the third most innings pitched. The Spokane, Wash. native has allowed just 0.460 runs per inning on the year and has thrown 12 complete ball games.
Other hitter of the week nominees included: Hawai`i’s Kate Robinson hit .471 with three home runs ...Louisiana Tech’s Rochelle Sandberg hit .429 with six hits ... Nevada’s Sam Bias hit .417 with four RBI ... New Mexico State’s Ashley Roszkos hit .533 with 5five RBI as the Aggies swept San Jose State.
Other pitcher of the week nominees included: Fresno State’s Robin Mackin went 3-0 for the Bulldogs last week ... Hawai?i’s Kate Robinson went 3-0 as the Rainbow Wahine start the WAC season 6-0 ... Nevada’s Katie Holverson had two complete games with eight strikeouts.