Four Eastern Kentucky University softball players earned Ohio Valley Conference postseason honors at the league’s awards banquet on Tuesday night.
Junior outfielder Paige Murphy and sophomore infielder Rachel Minogue were voted first team All-OVC, senior shortstop Krislyn Campos was voted second team All-OVC and freshman pitcher Mollie Paulick was named to the OVC All-Newcomer Team.
It is the second consecutive year Murphy has earned first team All-OVC honors. The center fielder out of Pleasure Ridge Park High School in Louisville batted .380 on the year with five home runs, 27 RBI, 20 runs scored and a team-best .640 slugging percentage. She missed 11 games to injury early in the season, but returned with a vengeance just in time for conference play. Against OVC competition, Murphy ranked seventh in the league in batting average (.404), eighth in on-base percentage (.472) and fifth in slugging percentage (.638). She was voted OVC Player of the Week on April 17 after hitting .583 with a home run, triple, double, five RBI and five runs scored over the previous week. Murphy blasted a grand slam and finished with five RBI in a crucial win over rival Morehead State on May 6.
Minogue won the OVC regular season batting title with a .421 average (The EKU single-season record is .420). The first baseman from Corona, California also led the league in hits (69) and ranked second in RBI (44), doubles (17) and on-base percentage (.495), fourth in total bases (98), eighth in slugging percentage (.598) and 10th in runs scored (37). Minogue tied EKU’s single-game record for RBI when she went 5-for-5 with a grand slam and eight runs driven in at Tennessee State on April 14. She was voted second team All-OVC last spring as a freshman.
It is the second consecutive year Campos has been named second team All-OVC. The lead-off hitter from Las Vegas, Nevada hit .322 this season while ranking third in the OVC in runs scored (45), fifth in hits (58) and seventh in doubles (11). She enters postseason play one run shy of tying the EKU single season record (46) and career record (150). Campos has started at shortstop for EKU in 206 of the Colonels’ last 209 games.
Paulick led EKU in nearly every pitching category her freshman season, including wins (12), ERA (2.66), complete games (nine), shutouts (three), innings pitched (147.1), strikeouts, (130) and opponent batting average (.226). Her 130 strikeouts and .226 opponent batting average both ranked seventh in the OVC. Paulick’s best performance of the season came in EKU’s OVC opener at Austin Peay when she tossed a one-hit, complete game shutout and struck out 11 Govs to earn the win. She also took a perfect game into the sixth inning against rival Morehead State on May 6 in Richmond.
No. 6 EKU opens OVC Tournament play on Wednesday against No. 3 SIUE at 11:00 a.m. ET.
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Steve Fohl
Associate Director of EKUSports Communications
Eastern Kentucky University