The Ohio State Buckeyes softball team celebrated a strong weekend of play. And after their successes, a pair of Buckeye stars earned Big Ten weekly honors.
On Monday, the Big Ten named sophomore catcher Jasmyn Burns the conference’s Player of the Week. Furthermore, freshman pitcher Lorin Boutte won the Pitcher of the Week award for her efforts.
The Buckeyes celebrated a 4-0 start to the season after blowing through the Elon Softball Classic.
Burns earned Player of the Week honors after hitting a startling .714 throughout the tournament. As the Big Ten wrote in their release, she also “recorded multiple hits in each of Ohio State’s four games and had a .733 on-base percentage.” It was darn-near impossible to get Burns out this weekend.
Meanwhile, the freshman Boutte was outstanding in the circle. Boutte threw a no-hitter in her first start the season and threw 12.1 shutout innings throughout the weekend.
Ohio State is out to a hot start this season under new head coach Kirin Kumar. After four seasons at Miami (OH), the Buckeyes hired Kumar away to head the team.
Ohio State hasn’t appeared in the NCAA Softball Tournament since 2022. The program is still on the hunt for its first-ever Women’s College World Series appearance. The Buckeyes have yet to even make the Super Regionals in their program’s history, dating back to the 1980s. They only once appeared in the AIAW WCWS in 1982.
Their last regular season Big Ten championship came back in 2007, the program’s second title, with the first coming in 1990. That was also the last time the Buckeyes won the Big Ten Softball Tournament. But maybe this year will be different for Ohio State softball. They’re out to a heck of a start.
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022