Mitchell, Tankersley and Lotief Highlight All-Louisiana Selections
LOUISIANA La. – For the second straight season, Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns softball team took home the majority of the top honors on the annual All-Louisiana softball team sponsored by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association (LSWA).
Junior ace pitcher Brooke Mitchell was named Pitcher of the Year and head coach Stefni Lotief topped LSU’s Yvette Girouard for Coach of the Year honors. Both Mitchell and Lotief earned repeat honors after both received their respective honors in 2003.
Power-hitter Holly Tankersley was rewarded as Freshman of the Year to give Louisiana-Lafayette three of the five specialty awards.
Tankersley’s selection marked the fourth straight season that a Cajuns player was tabbed the top freshman. Lotief repeated as Coach of the Year for the first time in her career.
Six Cajuns were listed on either the first or the second team with Mitchell and Tankersley (utility) representing Louisiana-Lafayette on the first team.
Lacey Bertucci (first base), Ashley Evans (designated player), Danyele Gomez (third base) and Tiffany Hebert (shortstop) were each named to the second team.
UL Lafayette’s six selections were the second-most statewide, trailing only LSU which had nine honorees.
Nominations for the 2004 All-Louisiana softball team were made by the softball contacts from each school’s sports information office. Voting was done by those contacts plus selected media members.
Mitchell earned her award as the state’s top hurler, for the second straight season, after recording a 45-5 record on the year along with a 0.82 earned run average.
In 315 2/3 innings of work, the 2004 USA Softball National Player of the Year finalist, first team All-Sun Belt Conference selection and first team National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-American allowed only 154 hits, 71 walks and 37 earned runs while fanning 524 batters.
The Sun Belt Conference’s Female Student-Athlete of the Year, she became one of a handful of Division I softball players to surpass 500 strikeouts in a season. She led the Cajuns to a perfect Sun Belt season, a league tournament championship, as well as the NCAA Region I championship game.
Tankersley was named the Freshman of the Year after batting .346 for the season with 65 hits, 12 doubles, 21 home runs and 53 RBI while also recording a 10-1 record on the mound with a 1.36 earned run average.
The Kirbyville, Texas, native set the school record for home runs, breaking the previous record of 20 set by Danyele Gomez. She also drew a school-record 44 walks and collected a freshman-record 140 total bases.
The 2004 Sun Belt Freshman of the Year and first team selection also earned first team All-South Region honors while being named the conference’s Hitter of the Week four times and state’s Hitter of the Week twice.
Lotief repeated as Coach of the Year after leading UL Lafayette to a 60-8 mark and the finals of Tuscon Regional while knocking off top-ranked Arizona before falling to Oklahoma. The Cajuns posted three separate double-digit win streaks and claimed the championship in five-of-six in-season tournaments they participated in.
The 2004 Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year led a team with only one senior and five underclassmen starters to a program record 60 wins and the school’s fourth straight regular season conference title.
Gomez highlighted the Cajuns second-team honorees. The Metairie native, who is quickly becoming known as “Miss May”, led Louisiana-Lafayette with 16 doubles and was a close second with 51 RBI.
Gomez turned up the heat this May tallying six doubles, six home runs and 13 RBI while batting .350. She homered twice off of Arizona’s Alicia Hollowell and picked up a team-high 10 hits during the Tucson Regional.
Her 13 home runs this season gave her double-digit dingers for the second straight season and 33 for her career as she moved into sole possession of third place on the career charts.
Hebert, a first-year starter at shortstop after studying behind Alana Addison and Jill Robertson the previous two seasons, picks up her first career All-Louisiana honor. She committed just eight errors (out of 131 chances) though 62 games played and had a stretch of 27 straight appearances without an error from Feb. 29-May 2 (53 consecutive chances).
The Breaux Bridge native finished second with 12 stolen bases and ranked third on the team with 37 walks. She was one of only three players on the team with more walks than strikeouts (37BB:30K).
Evans, a redshirt sophomore who returned from a hand injury suffered in 2003, set personal bests in every statistical category and was second on the team with a .340 average. She started most of the season at designated player, but moved into the first-base slot during the Sun Belt Tournament.
The West Monroe native collected 54 total hits, 13 doubles, one triple, six home runs and 30 RBI. Evans had 14 multiple-hit games and 10 multiple-RBI games. She had the game-winning double against Middle Tennessee that helped the Cajuns secure a perfect 18-0 Sun Belt record.
A member of the Tucson Regional All-Tournament team, Evans led the Cajuns with a .450 average during the tournament, picking up nine base hits and scoring a team-high six runs.
Bertucci, a true freshman, finished fourth on the team with 40 RBI. She had 17 extra base hits, collecting eight doubles and nine home runs. The Folsom native sported a .983 fielding percentage and started 55 games at first base.
Louisiana, the four-time defending Sun Belt champion, will return its entire starting lineup in 2005 in addition to six highly touted recruits.
LOUISIANA SI
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