Farish Beard Named SBC Pitcher of the Week
Junior Farish Beard struck out 29 during the tournament to earn MVP honors and help lead the Jaguars to a 5-0 record to open the 2014 season. | Photo usajaguars.com
South Alabama’s Farish Beard was named the Sun Belt Conference Pitcher of the Week on Monday. This is the first weekly award announced by the conference office for Softball this season.
Farish, who has a shutout streak dating back to last season for a total of 46 consecutive innings, also extended another streak with this award. This marks the second season in a row that she has earned the Pitcher of the Week honor for the first week of play.
Beard went 3-0 over the weekend at the 2014 Mardi Gras Invitational played at the newly renovated Jaguar Field. She struck out 29 batters and only allowed three hits in 12 2/3 innings to extend her shutout streak.
She was also named to the All-Tournament team and named the tournaments Most Valuable Player as she helped the Jaguars to get off to their best start in program history with a 5-0 record.
Her season debut was against #21 ranked UAB where she struck out 10 in a mercy-rule shortened 8-0 decision.
She followed up that performance with 13 strikeouts, one short of her career high, against Syracuse. She then pitched 2 2/3 innings in relief against Austin Peay where she worked herself out of a one-out, bases loaded jam. She would finish the day with six strikeouts, no walks and only allowing one hit.
Beard and the Jaguar team travels to Athens Georgia for the Bulldog Invitational where they will face Ohio, Mercer, Furman and the Georgia Bulldog (twice).