April 27, 2010

Rio's Smith earns third MSC Pitcher honor this season

Louisville, KY - The University of Rio Grande's Anna Smith is the Mid-South Conference Softball Pitcher of the Week, the conference announced on Monday. This is the final weekly regular season award of the year. 

The conference's weekly award is the third this season for Smith.

Smith hurled a pair of complete game wins while allowing just one run to earn MSC Pitcher of the Week honors. The Ross, Ohio, sophomore scattered nine hits in her 14 innings of work.

Smith completed the week with a 0.50 earned run average and 12 strikeouts.

For the season, Smith should be in line for All-MSC honors with a 16-13 record and a 1.88 ERA. She has recorded 164 strikeouts this season, which is a new school record.

Rio Grande head coach David Pyles continues to maintain that Smith is one of the top pitchers in the MSC. "Certainly so, Anna is just a few games above .500, but there have been many games where Anna has thrown a tremendous game and our offense just hasn't given her much support," Pyles said. "As of late, we have been, we've been coming around with the bats much better and if Anna continues to throw like she is, we definitely have a legitimate shot of winning this conference tournament."

Rio Grande is 29-19 overall and finished 17-11 in MSC play, good for fourth place. Smith and the RedStorm are the No. 4 seed heading into the league tournament this weekend at Danville, KY.

Rio Grande will close out the regular season on Tuesday (tonight) on the road at Shawnee State.