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Mountain West Announces 2009 All-Conference Softball Team
May 11, 2009 COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The 2009 Mountain West All-Conference softball awards, as selected by the league's six head coaches, were announced today. BYU sophomore Jessica Purcell was named MWC Player of the Year, while fellow Cougar Christie Zinanti captured the MWC Pitcher of the Year award. San Diego State's Bailey Micetich garnered MWC Freshman of the Year acclaim, and BYU's Gordon Eakin captured MWC Coach of the Year honors for the first time.Purcell, who hails from La Puenta, Calif., led the league in five offensive categories to help the Cougars to a 12-2 conference record (39-16 overall) to capture their fourth outright regular-season title and the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. During conference play, she hit at a .447 clip, tallied a league-leading seven home runs, scored 14 runs and collected 24 runs batted in (RBI). She ranks third in the nation for RBI (1.41), 18th for slugging percentage (0.819), 25th in doubles per game (0.31) and 26th in home runs (15). Purcell is three RBI away from breaking BYU's single-season record, and is also five doubles away from the topping the school's single-season chart. She is the sixth Cougar to be named MWC Player of the Year. Zinanti, a native of Pueblo, Colo., becomes the first BYU hurler and first junior to earn the MWC Pitcher of the Year award. This season, she went 6-0 in conference play, including three complete games, with an ERA of 1.28. The righthander led the MWC in opposing batting average (.201), batters struck out looking (65) and wins (20). She also ranks first in the school's record books for all-time wins (51), strikeouts (427) and innings pitched (470.1). Micetich, a Woodland, Calif., product, led San Diego State to a second-place finish in the MWC and an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. She went 7-2 in Conference play with a league-leading 1.09 ERA in 57 2/3 innings. The righthander is 19-6 overall in 2009, including a school-record 15 consecutive wins. Micetich has thrown 12 complete games in her freshman campaign and has collected seven solo shutouts to tie for seventh on the school's all-time career list. Eakin collected his first MWC coaching honor after guiding BYU to its fourth regular-season league crown and fifth consecutive NCAA Regional appearance. The seventh-year coach is 284-127 (.691) at the helm of the Cougars to become the winningest coach in school history. Earlier this season, the Amateur Softball Association of America and USA Softball named Eakin one of 14 coaches in the 2009 Women's National Team coaching pool. The 20-member all-conference team includes five student-athletes each from regular-season champion BYU and San Diego State, four from UNLV, and two apiece from Colorado State, New Mexico and Utah.
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