(Tempe, AZ) After watching what Sun Devil Softball’s Kenzie Brown and Samantha Swan throughout Arizona State’s outings last week, it didn’t take long for those with a weekly honor to select the ASU battery as repeat winners.
For the second consecutive week, Swan was selected as the Big 12 Conference’s Player of the Week, while Brown was the league’s pitcher of the week, the conference announced Tuesday morning. It marks the first time in program history the same two student-athletes won a conference’s player and pitcher of the week honor in back-to-back weeks.
This week’s Big 12 Pitcher of the Week honor marks the third for Brown this season, the most by a Sun Devil pitcher in the same season since Giselle Juarez was selected as a four-time Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week throughout the 2018 season. Swan is the first Arizona State position player to earn a league’s player of the week honor multiple times in the same season since Maddie Hackbarth picked up the Pac-12’s Player of the Week honor three times during the 2021 campaign.
Additionally, the NFCA circled back to Tempe when handing out a national honor as a week after Swan was selected as the NFCA Player of the Week, Brown was chosen as the NFCA’s National Pitcher of the Week. D1Softball and Softball America also picked Brown as their national pitcher of the week, too, marking the first time in program history one Sun Devil softball student-athlete has picked up a Big 12, NFCA, D1Softball and Softball America weekly honor on the same day.
Brown is the first Sun Devil pitcher to the NFCA’s National Pitcher of the Week honor since Giselle Juarez on March 27, 2018. She’s also the first Arizona State softball student-athlete to be selected as D1Softball and Softball America’s Pitcher of the Week.
In three appearances in the pitching circle last week, Brown finished with 0.74 ERA, 0.89 WHIP and a 12.89 K/7 mark in 19 innings of work en route to earning three complete game victories. Her 35 strikeouts on the week were more than every other Big 12 pitching staff combined during the same stretch. She capped her week’s performance with a seven-strikeout outing in five innings of work on Sunday, April 19 to push her season strikeout total to 200, becoming the first Sun Devil pitcher with back-to-back 200-strikeout seasons since SDA Hall of Famer and Olympic medalist Dallas Escobedo did so in 2013 (325) and 2014 (336).
Swan, the hottest hitter in the Big 12, collected at least one hit in all four games last week, while driving in six runs and scoring six as well. She posted a .615/.688/1.000 batting line in 13 official at bats and was credited with at least two hits in all three games against Houston pitching. Her eight hits on the week were the most by any Big 12 student-athlete on a team which won every game last week. By the end of ASU’s road sweep at Houston, she had not been retired in her last nine consecutive plate appearances on a three-game span.
UP NEXT
Following the three-game road series sweep at Houston, Arizona State (35-13, 8-10) will return to action on Friday, April 24, when the Sun Devils begin a three-game home conference series against No. 2/3 Texas Tech (42-4, 16-2) with first pitch slated for 6 p.m. MST on ESPN2.
Press Release courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics – Chris Brown
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