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Jun 14, 2006: Virginia Wesleyan's Sowell, Nixon Earn All-Virginia Softball Honors
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DANVILLE, Va. - Two women who were instrumental in guiding Virginia Wesleyan College's softball team to a 27-win season have been honored as two of the best players in Virginia.
May graduate Becky Sowell (Yorktown, Va./Tabb) and rising junior Mandy Nixon (Virginia Beach, Va./Kempsville) have been selected to the All-Virginia first team by the members of the Virginia Sports Information Directors Association. It is only the second time since 1998 that two Marlins have received first-team honors.
The honor is the second for Sowell, who is the third Virignia Wesleyan softball player to earn two All-Virginia recognitions. She has played a crucial role in the Marlins' success for four years as a pitcher and exits the program as the all-time leader in strikeouts (435) not only at Wesleyan, but also in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC). She wiped out the existing Virginia Wesleyan and league record of 382 by recording 170 strikeouts in 2006, setting single-season Marlin and ODAC records in the process.
Sowell's drive toward the strikeout record started with the first game of the season when she fanned a single-game record 12 batters against Maryland's McDaniel College. She tied that record two games later against Hampton Roads rival Christopher Newport University and two more times during the season against Ferrum College and Eastern Mennonite University.
It was a banner season for Sowell, the 2006 ODAC Pitcher-of-the-Year, who recorded career-best totals across the board, including a 15-6 pitching record and a 1.76 earned run average. She also hit at a .331 clip and finished with a .320 career batting average. Sowell compiled an overall 40-25 pitching record and a 1.64 earned run average, the second best career average in VWC history. She set Virginai Wesleyan's single-season ERA record in 2005, finishing that season with a 1.41 mark.
While Sowell closed out a standout career, Nixon started one with the Marlins. In her first year with the team, she led the Marlins with 63 hits, marking her as the first player in Wesleyan's highly successful softball history to record 60 or more hits in a season. She hit safely in 32 of 41 games played, highlighted by a 4-for-4 effort, with a double and triple against North Carolina Wesleyan College. She put together a 12-game hitting streak in the final weeks of the season en route to a .444 batting average, the second best ever by a sophomore hitter, the seventh best overall in VWC history and the highest for a Marlin hitter since 2000 when Stacey Zielinski hit at a .452 clip.
Twenty-six of her hits produced extra-bases ... 14 doubles, five triples and a team-leading seven home runs. Her 14 doubles rank No. 4 among Wesleyan's top single-season totals, the triples rank No. 5 and the home runs rank No. 2. Nixon also ranked in the top five in all but one offensive category in the ODAC. She was first in triples, second in stolen bases, third in total bases, fourth in total hits and fifth in doubles, home runs, runs scored and on base percentage.
Virginia Wesleyan finished the 2006 campaign with a 27-14 record, the Marlins' best showing since a 30-win season in 2001. The 27 victories rank fifth among Virginia Wesleyan's top victory totals in the 25-year history of the program. Virginia Wesleyan teams have averaged an impressive 24 wins per season through 25 seasons.
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