Stony Brook’s Hayley Durham (San Jose, Calif./San Lorenzo Valley) earns her second-straight Player of the Week award and shares it with Samantha Morrison (Coatesville, Pa./Coatesville Area) of Hartford. Ashlee Freeman (Northrdige, Calif./Oaks Christian) of Boston University earns her second-consecutive Pitcher of the Week award of the season, while Boston University’s Jenna Grapensteter (Bothell, Wash./Bothell) and Dana Shepherd (Columbia, Md./Oakland Mills) garner their first-ever Rookie of the Week accolades. The awards were announced on Monday (May 2).
Durham had another outstanding week, hitting .500 (6-for-12) with three home runs along with six RBI and five runs scored while slugging 1.333. She started the week going 2-3 with a run scored vs. UMBC. Against Hartford, she had a break out afternoon, going 4-for-6 including three home runs to go with six RBI and four runs in the double header. Durham now leads the team and America East with 13 homers on the season. Morrison batted .534 for the week from the leadoff spot, scoring a team-high eight runs while recording a team-high seven RBI. She had the most hits (11) by any Hartford player for the week and tied for the most home runs (2), while also stealing a team-best three bases in four attempts. Morrison hit the game-tying homer in the seventh inning against Vermont over the weekend in the first game, which the Hawks went on to win in eight innings. She then drove in the game-winning runs in the second game vs. Vermont with a three-run homer in the sixth inning. She had multi-hit games in five of six contests last week.
Freeman went 3-0 on the week as she helped keep the Terriers’ 11-game win-streak alive. In 19.0 innings of work, Freeman allowed just 13 hits, five earned runs (1.84 ERA) and walked only four, while striking out 16.
Grapensteter was 1-0 on the week in two appearances with a flawless 0.00 ERA. She allowed just three hits over 6.2 innings pitched and struck out seven without allowing a single run. Shepherd held a .500 on base percentage, a .714 slugging percentage and a .476 batting average in six games last week. The rookie short stop hit her fifth home run of the season and with two doubles reach 10 on the year. Shepherd recorded 10 hits on the week, becoming just the fourth freshman to record 50 or more hits in a season in UMBC history. Shepherd droved in six runs and scored six times. Shepherd has a seven game hit streak going, dating back to game two of the Stony Brook series the previous week and is batting .319 for the year and .323 in conference play.