Softball | 2/16/2015 6:39:00 PM
Moon Township, Pa. – A trio of student-athletes from the
Robert Morris University softball team swept the weekly honors from the Northeast Conference (NEC) as announced by the league Monday afternoon.
Senior
Alexis Schwartzmiller, senior
Nicole Sleith and freshman
Olivia Lorusso were selected Player of the Week, Pitcher of the Week and Rookie of the Week, respectively.
It marks just the second time in RMU history, and the first since 2001, that three Colonials swept the weekly league honors.
This was the first time the NEC handed out awards this season, so they therefore encompassed performances since the beginning of the 2015 campaign. With these honors, RMU has now claimed at least one weekly award in the first release of the season in each of the past five years.
With Monday's announcement, Robert Morris becomes the only NEC school to have had at least one student-athlete honored in the player of the week category in each of the last eight seasons.
Schwartzmiller burst out of the gates on the season's opening weekend as the second baseman hit .455 while posting a mammoth 1.000 slugging percentage. Of her five hits, four went for extra bases as she tallied three doubles and her first-collegiate home run in a mere 11 at bats. She contributed four RBI in four games and also scored a pair of runs. All three of Schwartzmiller's doubles came when she had two strikes already on her, and in two of those three instances, there were two outs in the inning and at least one runner in scoring position. Her first-collegiate long ball brought the tying run to the plate in the seventh inning.
Sleith was dominant in the circle for the Colonials on the season's opening weekend as she compiled a 1.21 ERA over 17.1 innings. She twirled a shutout in the season opener against Mid-American Conference foe Toledo while posting 10 strikeouts. Later in the day, she was called upon against Niagara with the tying and winning runs on base in the bottom of the seventh, but she got a swinging strikeout to end the threat and earn the save. She allowed opponents to hit only .150 off of her on the weekend and posted an incredible 13.7 strikeouts per seven innings pitched (34 in 17.1). In the final game of the weekend against Bowling Green, she struck out 14 of the 27 batters she faced, tying her career high, while posting the 16th double-figure strikeout effort of her career.
Lorusso did not look out of place at all while making her collegiate debut as the rookie hit .417 with a .462 on-base percentage and a .667 slugging mark on the season's opening weekend. She blasted her first-collegiate home run off a two-time All-MAC pitcher, becoming the first Colonial freshman to homer on the season's opening weekend since 2012. She had two RBI in a two-run win over Niagara and did not commit an error at the hot corner all weekend. Lorusso singled in both her first collegiate plate appearance as well as her first time at bat with a runner in scoring position and two outs.
Sleith claimed her 11th Pitcher of the Week award with this announcement and the 16th weekly honor of her career, extending the RMU program record in both categories.
Schwartzmiller and Lorusso both took home the first weekly honor of their career with this release, giving the Colonials a half dozen active student-athletes, including all four members of the senior class, who have won weekly honors in their career.
RMU resumes action this weekend as it plays five contests over three days at the EMU Madeira Beach Spring Invitational.
