University of Massachusets Athletics
Balschmiter And Mollica Honored By The A-10
April 17, 2006 | Softball
April 17, 2006
AMHERST, Mass. -- Massachusetts freshman pitcher Brandice Balschmiter (Newark, N.Y.) has been named the Atlantic 10 Softball Pitcher of the Week, while classmate Whitney Mollica (Windham, N.H.) was tabbed the Rookie of the Week the league office announced Monday afternoon. This is the seventh A-10 award for Balschmiter (six Pitcher of the Week; one Rookie of the Week) and the eighth for Mollica (six Rookie of the Week; two Player of the Week). The duo are being honored for their performances last week as UMass went 5-0 overall and 4-0 in A-10 play.
Balschmiter went 4-0 on the week with a 0.28 ERA. She allowed just one earned run on nine hits and five walks in 25 innings pitched. She struck out 34 batters, an average of 1.36 an inning. Balschmiter had one shutout, a one-hitter with 12 k's against Saint Joseph's, and two more complete-game wins. One of those came against UConn. She did not allow an earned run while fanning 12. She also picked up a complete game victory against Temple. She gave up one earned run and no walks with six strikeouts. She then came into the second game out of the bullpen to record a win. In that second game, Balschmiter pitched four shutout innings. Balschmiter limited opponents to a .106 batting average on the week. For the season, she has 186 strikeouts. That is good for seventh on the all-time single-season list. She is now 18-6 with a 0.76 ERA.
Mollica batted .467 as she helped UMass to a perfect 5-0 week, 4-0 in A-10 play. Mollica went 7-for-15 with five runs scored, three doubles, two home runs and 10 RBI. With a two-home run, five RBI performance against Temple on Sunday, Mollica broke the UMass single-season RBI record. Kim Gutridge held the previous high of 45 in 1998, but did that in 59 games. Mollica currently has 47 in 35 games. She also tied Brandi Cross for the most home runs (nine) by a freshman. Cross did this in 2000. Mollica also walked twice on the week and was a perfect 2-for-2 in stolen base attempts. She posted a 1.067 slugging percentage and a .500 on-base percentage on the week. Mollica has now hit safely in 19 of the last 20 games going .500 (33-for-66) with seven doubles, two triples, eight home runs, 37 RBI and a 1.030 slugging percentage. In the 20 games, Mollica has recorded 11 multi-hit games and 12 multi-RBI games. She is hitting .431 on the season.
Massachusetts will play a single game at Boston College on Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. Listen live as Bob Behler and Matt Goldstein have the call on www.umassathletics.com beginning at 3:50 p.m. Live stats will also be available via Gametracker at www.umassathletics.com.