Baylor softball junior pitcher Gia Rodoni and senior infielder Shelby Friudenberg swept both the Big 12 Pitcher of the Week and Big 12 Player of the Week, respectively, announced Tuesday by the conference office.
The Lady Bears swept the awards for the second time in the 2018 season, the first time in program history that BU has swept both conference weekly honors twice in one season.
Rodoni started all three games of the weekend series at Texas Tech, going 2-0 with a pair of double-digit strikeout gems.
In Saturday’s series clinching win at Texas Tech, the Los Banos, Calif., native spun a complete game, two-hit shutout with a season-high 14 strikeout effort in the circle.
In Sunday’s series finale win, she threw her second-straight complete game, adding 12 strikeouts and allowing just three hits and one first inning run.
Plagued all weekend by TTU’s Jessica Hartwell, Rodoni retired her four-straight times, including a crucial strikeout in the bottom of the seventh on Saturday night’s shutout and then holding Hartwell to an 0-for-3 game in the series finale on Sunday, adding two more strikeouts.
Despite struggling in Friday’s BU win, Rodoni still posted five strikeouts over 2.2 innings on a wind-swept day that saw a combined nine home runs between the two teams
The award is the fourth weekly honor from the conference for Rodoni, marking the fourth career award in Rodoni’s two-plus seasons at Baylor. The nod is the 37th awarded to a BU pitcher in program history. A Lady Bear pitcher has taken home at least one weekly honor from the conference each of the last eight years, with four or more awards in now three-straight seasons.
Friudenberg led the conference over the weekend with a .636 batting average, .692 on base percentage, and 1.364 slugging mark (second in Big 12).
The Bruceville, Texas, product had at least one hit in all four of BU’s games on the week, including a 3-for-4 effort in BU’s comeback win to open the series vs. Texas Tech on Friday and a 2-for-2 mark in BU’s series-clinching win on Saturday vs. the Red Raiders.
In Sunday’s series finale at Texas Tech, Friudenberg hit her fifth home run of the season and the 45th of her career, breaking the Baylor program record for career home runs (44, Chelsi Lake, 2004-2007). After trailing for the first three innings by one, her two-run shot gave BU the lead and stood as the game-winning RBI.
Over the weekend, she led the Big 12 in on base percentage (.692), tied for the most runs scored (5) and total bases (15), was second in slugging percentage (1.364), third in hits (7), home runs (2), and doubles (2), and fifth in RBI (4).
Baylor pushed its winning streak vs. the Red Raiders to 15 games, sweeping the last five series vs. Texas Tech and winning the last six series matchups.
The nod is the first of the season and third career Big 12 weekly honor for Friudenberg, the 29th conference player of the week honor for BU.
