SFA Lands Five Preseason Honors
2/1/2010 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Feb. 1, 2010
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - Stephen F. Austin placed a league-best five players on the 2010 Preseason All-Southland Conference Softball teams, announced Monday by conference officials. All five Ladyjack selections are on the first team, giving SFA nearly twice as many slots on the top list as the next-closest league member.
Postseason honorees from a year ago, Kayla Gutowski, Briana Bishop, Ashley Struchtemeyer, Kendal Harper and Monika Covington, are all automatic selections to the preseason teams.
The five first-team honors are the most ever recorded by a Ladyjack team.
Harper, a senior outfielder, is coming off a junior campaign that saw her earn First-Team All-Southland honors after finishing among the league leaders in nine offensive statistical categories. Most notably, she was sixth in the conference with a .315 batting average and second in the league with 35 runs scored. Harper enters 2010 with a streak of 162 consecutive games started, including every contest in each of the last two seasons. She needs just 24 base hits to set a new SFA career record of 201.
Bishop, a third baseman, already holds a couple of big school records and could add to that total if her senior season turns out like the 2009 effort that ended with First-Team All-Southland accolades. Last year, Bishop took over the SFA records for single-season home runs with 12 and became the school's career leader with 25. She batted .314 and led the conference in slugging percentage (.604) and total bases (96). Her 37 runs batted in were second in the league and leave her needing just nine more RBI in 2010 to become the all-time Ladyjack leader in that category.
Junior pitcher Monika Covington joined Harper and Bishop on the first team a year ago, her second straight selection after earning Freshman of the Year honors and a first-team nod in 2008. With another strong performance in 2010, Covington could become the first Ladyjack in history to earn three straight First-Team All-Southland honors. She went 19-14 last year with a 1.77 ERA that ranked third in the league. She was among the conference's top five in five separate statistical categories and posted a career-best scoreless innings streak that ran to 27.2 frames and included portions of six contests.
Struchtemeyer was a second-team honoree a year ago after hitting .284. The junior brings uncommon offensive pop to the second base spot, as she was third in the league with nine homers. Her .510 slugging percentage was among the conference's top 10 marks, as were her 33 RBI and 79 total bases.
Gutowski took the league by storm as a rookie. She finished second in the Southland in batting average (.348), third in the league in slugging percentage (.565), first in on-base percentage (.427), fifth in hits (56) and first in RBI (41), making her the only player in the league to crack the top five in all five of those key offensive categories. Gutowski also finished among the conference's top 10 in doubles, home runs, total bases and walks on the way to First-Team All-Southland and Hitter of the Year honors. Along the way, she posted a 21-game hitting streak that was the longest in the nation in 2009.
The Ladyjacks will open the 2010 season on Feb. 12 when they begin play in the Mississippi State Bulldog Classic. SFA's first home action is a doubleheader against North Texas on Feb. 17. The Ladyjacks open Southland Conference play at home on March 2 with a three-game series against Sam Houston State.
-- SFA --
