Lawrence Earns C-USA Pitcher of the Week Honors
5/4/2009 12:00:00 AM | Softball
May 4, 2009
TULSA, Okla. - Junior pitcher Jackie Lawrence pitched The University of Tulsa softball team to two wins and the Conference USA regular season championship over the weekend and was named C-USA Pitcher of the Week for the second consecutive week, the league office announced Monday.
Lawrence earned two wins in a sweep of Southern Miss to help Tulsa to the regular season C-USA championship. She threw a complete game shutout on Sunday to secure the team's championship victory and her 17th of the season. In two complete games, Lawrence allowed three runs, only two were earned, struck out 15 batters, walked three and allowed 11 hits.
"This is a well-deserving honor for Jackie," Tulsa Head Coach John Bargfeldt said. "She pitched this weekend like she has been pitching for us the last several weeks. Every time she got in a tough situation this weekend, she came up with a big pitch. You can't say enough about the guts that she has with runners in scoring position and less than two outs."
In Sunday's win, she pitched her seventh shutout of the season, and showed her grit in pressure situations. In two situations with runners in scoring position and less than two outs, she battled back to get the next two batters out and ended both innings with a strikeout. On Saturday, she allowed just two earned runs and struck out eight batters to help the Hurricane to a 9-3 win.
The Golden Hurricane (35-15, 16-4 C-USA) is the No. 1 seed in the 2009 Conference USA Championship presented by Helen of Troy, and will play the winner of No. 8-seed UAB and No. 9-seed Memphis Thursday at 3:30 p.m. CDT. Live stats of all Tulsa games in the tournament will be available at www.TulsaHurricane.com. Follow the TU softball team through the C-USA Championship with results, stats and news at www.TulsaHurricane.com.
