ATLANTA - The Great South Athletic Conference announced the spring sports Players of the Week for contests played March 14 - 20 and, after voting by the league sports information directors, Salem's Kierston Garner won her third straight and fourth overall Player of the Week award while her teammate Brianna Morris collected her third Pitcher of the Week honor of the season. Anastasia Bennett of Agnes Scott won the first Tennis Player of the Week honor bestowed this spring.
GSAC Softball Player of the Week – Kierston Garner of Salem
The bat of Senior Kierston Garner of Salem College continues to impress as she once again had a remarkable week of hitting. It started with the first double header versus Ferrum College when Garner hit two more home runs to put the Spirits up big, leading them to a 6-1 and 5-1 victory. From then on Garner put on a hitting clinic in four additional games. In six games she went 8-for-15 at the plate batting .533. Garner had 15 at bats, including 4 home runs, 4 singles, scoring 5 runs and delivering 8 RBI's. Garner's on-base percentage was .632 and her slugging percentage was an incredible 1.333 for the weekend. Garner is leading the conference in hits, batting average, home runs, RBI's, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage.
GSAC Softball Pitcher of the Week – Brianna Morris of Salem
Brianna Morris had an outstanding week pitching for Salem as she picked two more victories with wins over Ferrum and Mary Baldwin. Morris pitched 19.1 innings in 3 games, allowing six earned runs on 21 hits in Salem's 6-1 win over Ferrum and a 17-2 victory over Mary Baldwin. Morris struck out 11 batters and only gave up three walks. She finished the weekend with an ERA of 2.83
GSAC Tennis Player of the Week – Anastasia Bennett of Agnes Scott
In a very busy six match week for the Scotties which saw them face off with several highly-rated teams including #4 Emory University, Bennett went 4-2 in singles and 2-3 in doubles. In the Scotties' win over Ramapo (13-3), Bennett won easily in doubles and singles, winning 8-1 at #3 doubles and 6-2, 6-2 at #4 singles. She followed that up with straight set wins in singles over NCAA Division II Shepherd University (6-1, 6-1) and a 15-1 Concordia University team at the #3 spot (6-0. 6-1). She ran her win streak to four matches with another win at #3 singles over USA South's Meredith College, winning 6-0, 6-3 over Laura Hatcher in the Scotties' 7-2 loss to the Avenging Angels.
The GSAC sports information directors nominate Player of the Week candidates and then vote on the top two nominees in each sport as selected by the conference office. Player of the Week voting occurs on Tuesdays and the weekly announcement of the winners is released each Wednesday morning.