Showcase performances in the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Softball team's sweep of South Alabama landed Laney Credeur the Sun Belt Player of the Week award and Sam Landry the Sun Belt Pitcher of the Week award, the conference office announced on Tuesday, April 11.
Credeur batted .750 (9-for-12) for the week, headlined by her 6-for-6 performance with three home runs and six RBI in Louisiana's doubleheader sweep of South Alabama on Saturday (April 8) that clinched the Sun Belt series victory and vaulted the team into first place.
She was directly responsible for giving the Ragin' Cajuns a first inning lead over the Jaguars in both games, launching her first home run of the day to start the scoring in Game 1 and delivering a two-run single in her first at bat of Game 2.
Starting with a 2-for-3 outing that included a double on Tuesday at McNeese, Credeur delivered three straight multiple-hit games capped off by the pair of three-hit, three-RBI efforts in the USA doubleheader. For the week, all nine times that Credeur reached base was via a base hit leading to a .750 on base percentage.
Landry tossed 14 innings of scoreless softball during the week as she claimed three of Louisiana's four victories that stretched the team's winning streak to a season-high seven games. She yielded just six hits, surrendered only two walks, struck out 10 and limited the opposition to a .122 average.
Her week began with four shutout innings of one-hit softball at McNeese and followed by 10 spotless innings of five-hit softball pitched in the South Alabama series, turning in back-to-back efforts of five scoreless innings that led to consecutive shutouts of the Jags to close out the weekend.
In the pivotal USA series, Landry scattered four hits and struck out six over the five scoreless innings in Game 2 on Saturday that clinched the series victory. On Sunday, her stellar relief effort started by working out of a bases loaded jam with no outs in the second inning to protect the shutout and then she proceeded to finish blanking the Jaguars the next four innings.
Louisiana swept the SBC weekly awards for the first time since 2019.
Credeur collected her first career SBC Player of the Week award while Landry was honored as SBC Pitcher of the Week for the second time this season (also on Feb. 14) and fourth time in her career.
The Ragin' Cajuns have now claimed five weekly awards from the Sun Belt in the 2023 season, Tuesday's honors adding to the SBC Pitcher of the Week awards claimed by Landry (Feb. 14) and Meghan Schorman (Feb. 28) in February and Karly Heath's SBC Player of the Week honor (Mar. 21) in March.
Louisiana, which has received at least one SBC Player or Pitcher of the Week award since the inception of the league in 2000, now owns 97 all-time awards of both the Sun Belt Player of the Week and Pitcher of the Week in program history.
Credeur leads the Cajuns with a .560 average (14-of-25) in Sun Belt play, generating four home runs and 10 RBI since breaking into the lineup in the App State series (March 24-25). Over her last four appearances (three starts), Landry is 4-0 with a 0.74 ERA having surrendered only two runs and nine base hits over 19 innings in the circle.
Louisiana (30-10, 11-1 SBC) takes in its annual Spring Break trip this week, on the road in Texas for midweek games at Baylor and Texas A&M from Tuesday-Wednesday, April 11-12. Afterwards the squad returns home for another key three-game Sun Belt Conference series facing Texas State at Yvette Girouard Field at Lamson Park from Friday-Sunday, April 14-16.
2023 LOUISIANA SOFTBALL SUN BELT PLAYER/PITCHER OF THE WEEK AWARDS
Feb. 14 – Sam Landry (Pitcher of the Week)
Feb. 28 – Meghan Schorman (Pitcher of the Week)
Mar. 21 – Karly Heath (Player of the Week)
Apr. 11 – Laney Credeur (Player of the Week)
Apr. 11 – Sam Landry (Pitcher of the Week)