BASEBALL: Austin Peay’s Phillips, Middle Tennessee’s Puckett garner TSWA accolades
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Austin Peay’s Parker Phillips and Middle Tennessee’s Cody Puckett were named the Baseball Player and Pitcher of the Week, respectively, by the Tennessee Sports Writers Association on Thursday for their performances for May 8-14.
Phillips batted .500 (10-for-20) with two doubles, three home runs, eight RBIs and seven runs scored in five games for the Govs. The Collierville, Tenn., native started the week with a 5-for-5 effort that included a double, a homer and three RBIs against Evansville.
The redshirt freshman was 3-for-4 with a home run and three RBIs against Lipscomb. In a weekend series at Notre Dame, he doubled and scored a run in the opener and hit a two-run homer in the eighth inning to break a 3-3 tie in the series finale, helping APSU to a 5-3 victory. Phillips is batting .339 with 14 doubles, 11 home runs, 35 RBIs and 44 runs scored in 47 games this season.
Puckett tossed seven shutout innings for the Blue Raiders at Rice, allowing just four hits with two walks and eight strikeouts. The senior lefthander tied his career-long outing in the victory, retiring 16 of the final 19 batters he faced, working around singles in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings by the Owls. Only one Rice batter reached second base in the seven innings, on a double in the first.
Puckett improved to 3-4 in 11 outings covering 53.2 innings this season, giving up 53 hits with 62 strikeouts.
2017 TSWA BASEBALL PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
February 14 – Ryan Addington, Carson-Newman (Player); Travis Dohr, Cumberland University (Pitcher)
February 21 – Nolen Milton, Union University (Player); Evan Heffner, Maryville College (Pitcher)
February 28 – Collin Harris, Tennessee Tech (Player); Brady Puckett, Lipscomb (Pitcher)
March 8 – Wade Weinburger, Bryan College (Player); Michael Wood, Tennessee Tech (Pitcher)
March 15 – Ryan Flick, Tennessee Tech (Player); Alex Robles, Austin Peay (Pitcher)
March 21 – Austin Krajnak, Cumberland University (Player); JR Miller, Union University (Pitcher)
March 29 – Matt Jones, Tennessee Tech (Player); Trey Sledge, Rhodes College (Pitcher)
April 6 – J.P. Castaneda, King University (Player); Octavio Mirabal, King University (Pitcher)
April 11 – Ryan Kemp, Middle Tennessee (Player); Matt Ruppenthal, Vanderbilt (Pitcher)
April 18 – Paul Kirby, Carson-Newman (Player); Kyle Wright, Vanderbilt (Pitcher)
April 26 – Nick Egli, Belmont (Player); Blake Glaudeb, Rhodes College (Pitcher)
May 2 – Alex Robles, Austin Peay (Player); Denton Norman, Lipscomb (Pitcher)
May 10 – Dan Kerwin, UT Martin (Player); Kyle Wright, Vanderbilt (Pitcher)