April 6, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State softball player Alyssa VanDerveer (Hillsborough, N.J.) had a monster week at the plate for the Nittany Lions and she's being awarded with two pieces of hardware from the Big Ten Conference. For her efforts during the past five games, VanDerveer has been named both the B1G Player of the Week as well as the conference's Freshman of the Week.
The first year backstop had a remarkable five games against Bucknell and Wisconsin, achieving milestones that some players wait an entire career to complete. That's because she went deep not once, but twice with the bases loaded during a four game stretch.
Her first grand slam came in Game No. 1 of a doubleheader with Bucknell (Apr. 1) in the bottom of the seventh with Penn State trailing 8-4. Her bomb tied the game up and set the stage for an eventual walk-off win.
Proving her grand feat was no April Fools' anomaly, VanDerveer came up to the plate again with the bases loaded in the first inning at Wisconsin (Apr. 3) and promptly sent the Badger offering over the right field wall to put her team up 4-0.
Not satisfied with her two grand slams, VanDerveer stroked another long ball of the solo variety in PSU's 15-5 victory over Wisconsin (Apr. 4), to give her a total of three home runs during a five game stretch.
To go along with all of her round trippers, the Blue and White rookie also roped a double during her week's work. In all, she went 6-10 (.600) with 11 RBI, eight runs scored and 16 total bases in addition to a staggering nine walks.
She was awarded a base on balls five times in the doubleheader with Bucknell and then a pair in each of the final two games of the Wisconsin series with opposing pitching dealing to her ever so carefully.
VanDerveer leads Penn State with nine round trippers on the season and is third on the team in RBI with 26. She also ranks second on the team in slugging percentage (.600) and walks (17). When it comes to conference rankings the Nittany Lion freshman is tied for ninth in long balls.
This week's sweep of awards marks the first time in 2015 a Lion has earned a B1G weekly honor. The last time a Penn State player took home some weekly hardware courtesy of the conference was during the 2014 season when Lexi Knief (Ramsey, N.J.)Â was named Player of the Week for Apr. 7.
B1G Release: http://bit.ly/1DFnrVZ