Auburn pitcher Shelby Lowe was named SEC Freshman of the Week after pitching the Tigers to a 3-0 shutout win against No. 18 Missouri on Sunday, the SEC announced on Tuesday.
Earning her second SEC Freshman of the Week honor this season, Lowe was also named the D1 Softball Freshman of the Week after her pitching performance over the weekend.
Tuesday’s SEC Freshman of the Week honor is Auburn's fourth of the season and is the program record for most in a single-season. Auburn pitchers Lowe and Maddie Penta have both won the award twice.
Before this season, Auburn softball had only one player in program history named SEC Freshman of the Week multiple times in the same season as pitcher Anna Thompson was named it twice in 2007.
Now that group has grown to three in just one season, with Lowe and Penta joining the ranks.
Lowe is Auburn’s first freshman to be named D1 Softball Freshman of the Week after D1 Softball began its coverage during the 2020 season.
Earning two starts against Missouri, Lowe allowed just one run in a total of 14.1 innings for a 0.49 earned average run. Lowe led the Tigers with 17 strikeouts while not allowing a single walk during the span of the two 7-inning games.
Lowe struck out 11 Missouri batters in Sunday's series finale to secure Auburn’s first SEC win of the season. The 3-0 win was the first Auburn shutout victory in SEC play since April of 2017 and marked Auburn’s first win in Columbia, Missouri, since 2015.
Lowe is now tied with Auburn pitcher Renee Sease (1997) for the fifth-most strikeouts by an Auburn freshman in a single season with 99. The Carrollton, Alabama, native has also struck out at least 10 batters in five different appearances this season.
Lowe enters the weekend second in the SEC with a 0.74 earned run average while leading the league in the fewest hit batters (2), strikeout-to-walk ratio (11.00), and walks allowed per seven innings (0.83). She also leads all SEC true freshmen with 99 strikeouts which ranks her fifth overall in the conference.
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Larry is a senior studying journalism with a minor in sociology. He is from Enterprise, Alabama and is in his third year with The Auburn Plainsman.
Twitter: @ReportingLarry
