AUBURN, Ala. – Earning her second victory over a top-25 opponent behind her shutout performance at No. 18 Missouri, Shelby Lowe was tabbed DI Softball Freshman of the Week and earned her second Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Week honor of the season. Both honors were announced Tuesday.
An Auburn freshman has been named SEC Freshman of the Week a program-record four times this season. Lowe and her counterpart in the circle, Maddie Penta, have now each won the award twice. Lowe joins Penta and Anna Thompson (2007) as the only Auburn pitchers to be named SEC Freshman of the Week multiple times in the same season.
She is the first Auburn freshman in program history to be named DI Softball Freshman of the Week. DI Softball began its coverage during the 2020 season.
Lowe earned two starts at Missouri, allowing just one run in 14.1 total innings for a 0.49 earned run average. She struck out a team-leading 17 batters and did not issue a single walk over the weekend.
Her weekend performance was highlighted with a 3-0 shutout victory Sunday’s series finale. She struck out 11 total Tigers in the outing to carry Auburn to its first victory in Southeastern Conference play this season. The win was also Auburn’s first in Columbia, Mo., since the 2015 season. It was also Auburn’s first shutout victory in SEC play since a 3-0 victory at Tennessee on April 7, 2019.
Lowe has now struck out at least 10 batters in five appearances this season. The Carrollton, Ala., native is tied with Renee Sease (1997) for the fifth most strikeouts by an Auburn freshman in a season with 99.
Entering the weekend, Lowe is second in the SEC with a 0.74 earned run average. She also leads the league in fewest hit batters (2), strikeout-to-walk ratio (11.00) and walks allowed per seven innings (0.83). Her 99 strikeouts lead all SEC true freshmen and ranks fifth overall in the league.
