March 05, 2003
Oklahoma third base senior Leah Gulla and Texas A&M junior pitcher Lindsay Wilhelmson each have named the Big 12 Softball Pitcher and Player of the Week the conference office announced, Wednesday.
Lindsay was the catalyst for the Aggies as they went to Palo Alto, Calif., and won the tournament title at the Stanford Classic. The North Richland Hills, Texas, righthander/first base was the winning pitcher in three of the Ags' four wins over the weekend as she defeated No. 11 Stanford, No. 12 Georgia, and Long Beach State. Wilhelmson held Georgia hitless in the championship game through five innings. She did not lead the team in average this week, but the hits she did get were crucial and timely as three of them proved to be game winners with a home run against Long Beach on Friday, a grand slam against Stanford on Saturday and a double with the bases loaded in the top of the eighth against Georgia in the championship game on Sunday. Wilhelmson owns a staff best 7-2 mark after her three wins this weekend.
Gulla batted .579 with a team-high 11 hits in five games over the weekend in Oklahoma's sweep of No. 10 Arizona State and UC Riverside in Tempe, Ariz. The Huntington Beach, Calif., native had three doubles, two home runs, five runs scored, and a team-high 11 RBI for the Sooners. Defensively at third base, Gulla contributed seven putouts and 10 assists with no errors. Starting all 15 games for Oklahoma, Gulla is batting .420 this season and leads the Sooners in total bases (38), hits (21), RBI (19), doubles (5), home runs (4) and assists (30). In five innings, Gulla hit her second double-home run game of the season on Sunday in the Sooners' 13-1 run-rule game against UC-Riverside (the first was against No. 8 LSU at the NFCA Leadoff Classic in Columbus, Ga.).