College softball: Florida's Kelly Barnhill receives ESPY Award for Best Female Collegiate Athlete
Florida Athletics
Last Updated - Jul 13, 2017 09:26 EDT
LOS ANGELES – Sophomore Kelly Barnhill added another postseason award late Wednesday evening as she took home the 2017 ESPY for Best Female Collegiate Athlete during an awards celebration at the Microsoft Theater.
The Marietta, Ga., native became the first player in program history to receive an ESPY award.
Also on the ballot for the award was Stanford's Inky Ajanaku (volleyball), West Virginia's Kadeisha Buchanan (soccer), Washington's Kelsey Plum (basketball) and Maryland's Zoe Stukenberg (lacrosse).
This past season Barnhill helped lead the Gators back to the Women's College World Series with national leading marks in earned run average (0.51) and strikeouts per seven innings (13.0).
Those two staggering statistics also went down as the best in a single season by a Florida pitcher but she also set records in lowest opponent batting average (.121), most combined shutouts (10), most strikeouts looking (100) and lowest stolen base percentage (.333).
Season Awards
- 2017 ESPY – Best Female Collegiate Athlete
- 2017 Honda Sports Award
- 2017 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year
- 2017 espnW Player of the Year
- 2017 CoSIDA Academic All-American
- NFCA All-American First Team
- SEC Pitcher of the Year
- All-SEC First Team
- SEC Pitcher of the Week – 5x (2/20, 4/11, 4/18, 4/25, 5/2)
- USA Softball Co-Player of the Week – (4/18)
- Louisville Slugger/NFCA Pitcher of the Week – (4/18)
- ESPNW Player of the Week – (4/18)
Barnhill 2017 Top Performances & Highlights
- Pitched her second career no-hitter against Kentucky (4/16/17).
- Had 16 wins and 10 shutouts over top 25 opponents this season.
- Entered in the sixth inning of a scoreless game against then No. 1-ranked Florida State (4/12) and struck out three to shut the door on a 1-0 victory.
- Recorded the two longest scoreless inning streaks (45.2 & 51.0) by any current pitcher on staff this season.
- Pitched a program single game record 10.1 innings and 21 strikeouts (10 looking) against Florida State (5/3).
- Produced 19 games with 10 or more strikeouts and handed opponent season-highs to notable programs such as: Auburn (16), Georgia (14), Kentucky 2x (15), Ole Miss (16), Tennessee (12), Florida State (21) and Oklahoma (13).
- First pitcher in Florida history to have earned five SEC Pitcher of the Week awards in the same season.
- Struck out the side 48 times over 22 games in 2017.
- Threw four one-hitters in 2017: USF (2/12), Northwestern State (2/18), Long Beach State (3/2) and Oklahoma State (5/20)