On Apr. 19, first-year student Olivia Murphy was named NEC Softball Rookie of the Week. Murphy earned this accolade for her performance in a 4-3 win against Farleigh Dickinson University, where she threw a complete game, walking zero batters and giving up no earned runs. Apart from the FDU victory, Murphy has since pitched another complete game in a 3-1 win over Bryant. In this game, she only gave up four hits, giving up one run, striking out seven and walking zero batters. The sensational rookie is the fifteenth player in program history to be given the award of Rookie of the Week and the first of this season.
On receiving the award, Murphy said, "It's an honor to be named NEC Rookie of the Week. There are so many amazing rookies in this conference and so it feels great to know that I stood out this week.” The stat line from the past month shows Murphy’s evidence for this award, pitching 34.0, giving up on seven earned runs, striking out 14 and only walking three batters since the double-header against Central Connecticut State University on Apr. 2. Murphy’s Earned Run Average has also been stellar in that time, being as high as 2.75 and as low as 2.26 with her most recent complete game against Bryant.
The first year-year student went more into the ERA, saying, “It was important for me to do well against FDU in order to maintain or even lower my ERA and heading into the series, I was confident that I would be able to keep the FDU hitters off balance.” Murphy later added that, “Our pitching staff is deep, and we all have the ability to shut opposing teams down to help us win games. It’s great to know that the other pitchers on the staff are always ready to relieve me and I love that I can rely on them at all times. It will be important for the rest of the season for the whole staff to keep pitching the way that we have been because that will help lead the team to more wins in the future.”
Looking forward to the rest of the softball season, Mount St. Mary’s has one more conference series left, which is against Long Island University. They also have four more out of conference games left, with two single games against Towson at home, George Washington away and a two game home series against George Mason to end off out of conference play. With those games coming up as well as the LIU series to end the season, the team will need the low scoring pitching of Murphy and the rest of pitching staff to end the season and make a push for the NEC Playoffs.