MAC Tournament MVP Ladines Earns Final USA Softball Collegiate National Player of the Week Honor
5/16/2017 4:49:00 PM | Softball
OKLAHOMA CITY – Kent State senior Ronnie Ladines has been named the Week 14 USA Softball Collegiate National Player of the Week, USA Softball announced on Tuesday.
The award comes after Ladines earned Most Valuable Player honors in helping the Golden Flashes capture the Mid-American Conference Tournament championship last week at Firestone Stadium in Akron.
The Arlington, Washington native led Kent State in the circle and at the plate, as she won four games with a 1.06 ERA and 34 strikeouts and batted .529 (9-for-17) with two doubles, four home runs, seven RBIs and a 1.353 slugging percentage over six games.
"This a huge honor and I am so excited that I was able to do my part in helping Kent State get back to the NCAA Tournament," Ladines said. "Not many teams have been able to win three games in one day the history of our conference tournament, but every single player on our team believed we were going to do it. We used three different catchers, three different pitchers and our whole team contributed, which is awesome."
Ladines began the week by striking out 13 in a one-hitter and hitting a home run in a 4-1 win against Ball State. She followed with two home runs as part of a three-hit performance and allowed just one earned run the following day in a 9-3 win over Western Michigan.
After a tough 2-0 loss to Ohio Friday evening, Ladines and the Flashes won three games on Saturday. In the first game of the day against Northern Illinois, Ladines reached base in all four plate appearances and earned the victory following four quality innings in the circle. She then threw a perfect eighth inning to complete a 1-0 victory over Ohio and earn her third save of the season. Ladines tossed a gutsy three-hit shutout and hit a two-run bomb in the first inning to clinch the title in the third matchup of the tournament with the Bobcats, a 3-0 Kent State triumph.
"Ronnie had a stat line that could possibly be the best in the history of our conference tournament," said head coach Eric Oakley. "Winning the championship was a team effort, but Ronnie definitely led us. She was the arm that we rode in the circle, had multiple key hits and was extremely vocal in the dugout. She just wanted that championship so bad and took it to another level."
This is the second consecutive season USA Softball has chosen one of the Golden Flashes' student-athletes as a national player of the week recipient. Last season, junior Holly Speers was recognized after setting a NCAA Division I record by hitting a home run in five consecutive at-bats.
Kent State (32-26) will compete at the NCAA Waco Regional this weekend, beginning with a contest against No. 15 national seed Baylor on Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET. Every game played in the Waco Regional will be streamed on ESPN3 and all of Kent State's games can be heard live on Golden Flashes Radio.
