University of Minnesota Athletics
Houlihan, Groenewegen Earn Weekly Honors
2/29/2016 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Maddie Houlihan and Sara Groenewegen each took home Big Ten awards with Houlihan earning her first Big Ten Freshman of the Week honor and Groenewegen being named the Big Ten Pitcher of the Week for the second time this season and eighth time of her career, the conference announced Monday.
Houlihan helped the Gophers get past Mount St. Mary's coming up with a grand slam in the fourth inning. She was just getting started on the weekend as she finished with three home runs and now has four on the season. She drove in eight runs while scoring six times. She hit .313 with a perfect fielding percentage as the Gophers went 5-0 on the weekend.
Groenewegen continued the impressive start to her season striking out 32 batters in 22 innings of work this weekend. She took three of the Gophers five victories while appearing in four of them. Against No. 19 Arizona State she fanned 10 batters while only giving up four hits and one run. She finished the weekend with 13 innings of work against Houston striking out 19 batters.
So far in the early season Groenewegen, the reigning Big Ten Player of the Year, is 7-2 on the mound with an ERA of 1.93 and has thrown seven complete games. She already has recorded 84 strikeouts.
Minnesota hits the diamond for four more games this weekend in Athens, Ga. taking on No. 8 Georgia twice along with Western Carolina and Jacksonville.
