(Photo Courtesy of Robert Morris Athletics)
Duo earns Pitcher of the Week and Player of the Week awards
Moon Township, Pa. – February 17, 2014 – Junior Nicole Sleith (Smithton, Pa. / Yough) and sophomore Haileigh Stocks (Jamison, Pa. / Central Bucks South) of the Robert Morris University softball team each earned weekly awards from the Northeast Conference (NEC) as announced by the league Monday.
Sleith was named NEC Pitcher of the Week while Stocks was tabbed as the Player of the Week as both Colonials helped RMU get off to a solid start that included finishing as the only undefeated team at the CSU Dome Tournament and knocking off 2013 Sun Belt regular-season champion Western Kentucky.
This was the first time the NEC handed out awards this season, so they therefore encompassed performances since the beginning of the 2014 campaign. With these honors, RMU has now claimed at least one weekly award in the first release of the season in each of the past four years.
With Monday’s announcement, Robert Morris becomes the only NEC school to have had at least one student-athlete honored in the player of the week category in each of the last seven seasons.
Sleith began the 2014 campaign by demonstrating why is the reigning NEC Pitcher of the Year. Over the first two weeks of the season, Sleith has compiled a 0.61 ERA in five complete games. She has twirled three shutouts in the five outings while allowing 20 hits in 34.1 innings, allowing opponents to hit just .168 against her. She has also racked up 36 strikeouts in this span. She struck out 11 in a season-opening shutout of Canisius before tossing a two-hit shutout the following day in a 1-0 win. Sleith’s most impressive outing may have come in a setback as she allowed just one earned run and four hits in a complete-game effort against nationally ranked UCLA. Sleith also tossed a three-hit shutout, without a walk, against Western Kentucky, a 2013 NCAA Tournament participant.
Sleith notched her ninth career Pitcher of the Week accolade with this announcement and the 14th weekly honor of her career, extending the RMU program record in both categories.
Despite playing four of the first nine games against teams that qualified for last year’s NCAA Tournament, Stocks has put up impressive numbers with the stick. She batted .400 (10-for-25) in those nine contests with three doubles, which netted her a .520 slugging percentage. She tallied a trio of multi-hit performances, including going 2-for-3 with a double in a victory over Western Kentucky. Stocks provided a game-tying RBI with the Colonials trailing in the eighth inning against Bowling Green, helping RMU come from behind to pull out a win. In addition to posting a single in her first plate appearance against nationally ranked UCLA, she leads the team with three multi-hit games and also contributed a sacrifice fly, a sacrifice bunt and a steal in the past two weeks.
Stocks earned her first Player of the Week award with this announcement and her second weekly honor of any type.
Sleith and Stocks are two of the six active Colonials who have won NEC weekly honors in their career.
The Colonials will next be in action this Saturday and Sunday when they play four games at an event hosted by Charlotte.
