OU, OSU sweep Big 12 awards
Oklahoma State’s Vanessa Shippy was named the Big 12 softball Player of the Year Wednesday, while Oklahoma won the four other individual conference end-of-season awards.
The Sooners nearly posted another clean sweep in the conference.
After finishing with a perfect 18-0 record in the Big 12, OU won four of five individual conference end-ofseason awards, the league announced.
Paige Parker, Kelsey Arnold,
Jocelyn Alo and coach Patty Gasso all earned the other Big 12 individual awards.
Parker picked up pitcher of the year for the fourth consecutive year, joining Texas’
Cat Osterman as the only Big 12 pitchers to win the award four times. Parker, who led the Big 12 with a 0.51 ERA in conference play, is the third OU player to win the award. She’s the only pitcher in the conference to finish with a sub-1.00 ERA in Big 12 games.
Arnold won defensive player of the year for the second time in her career. She also earned the honor in 2016. Arnold is just the fourth Big 12 player to earn the honor twice in her career. The Tulsa native helped OU post a conference-best .989 team fielding percentage and was perfect on all 40 fielding opportunities this season.
Alo extended OU’s freshman of the year streak.
The power hitter is the fourth consecutive Sooner to be tabbed freshman of the year, following Parker, Shay
Knighten and Nicole Mendes.
Alo, a native of Hauula, Hawaii, leads the country with 23 home runs, and she finished her first conference season leading the Big 12 in home runs (9), walks (17), runs scored (18), RBI (25), total bases (46) and slugging percentage (.979).
Gasso earned coach of the year honors for the seventh consecutive season. She’s won the award 11 times overall. OU placed five players — Alo, Parker, Knighten, Paige
Lowary and Sydney Romero — on the All-Big 12 first team, and added three — Arnold,
Nicole Pendley and Caleigh Clifton — on the second team. Alo and infielder Eliyah
Flores were named to the All-Big 12 freshman team. The No. 1 seed Sooners open postseason play by taking on Texas and Iowa State on Friday in the Big 12 Championship.
OSU’s Shippy named Player of the Year
Oklahoma State third baseman Vanessa Shippy was named the Big 12 softball Player of the Year, becoming the third player in league history to win the award twice.
Five other OSU players were named to the All-Big 12 team. Shippy previously was named the league's top competitor in 2016, joining Oklahoma's Amber Flores (2009, 2010) and Shelby Pendley (2013, 2015). Shippy finished the regular season as the Big 12's leader in onbase percentage (.613), runs scored (65) and walks (54).
Her .460 batting average was one point behind Baylor's Kyla Walker for the league lead. She is among the top 10 nationally in all four categories.
During her senior season, Shippy became the fifth player in Big 12 history to record at least 225 career hits, 150 walks, 150 runs and 125 runs batted in. She was selected with the 11th overall pick in the National Pro Fastpitch draft by the Cleveland Comets.
Samantha Clakley, Taylor Lynch and Madi Sue Montgomery were all named to the All-Big 12 second team.
It is the third time that Montgomery has been named an All-Big 12 honoree, the second such occasion for Lynch and the first for Clakley. Sydney Pennington and Chelsea Alexander round out the group of six Cowgirls honored by the Big 12. Both earned a spot on the AllFreshman team.
OSU opens play in the Big 12 championship on Friday with pool-play games against Baylor at 11 a.m. and Texas Tech at 5 p.m. at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium.
Alo, Parker and Shippy among 10 finalists
A couple hours after learning of their individual Big 12 end-of-season awards, OU's Alo and Parker found out they were among the 10 finalists for the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award.
OSU infielder and Big 12 Player of the Year Shippy is also a finalist.