Northwestern University Athletics
Northwestern Sweeps Big Ten Weekly Honors
4/30/2007 12:00:00 AM | Softball
April 30, 2007
EVANSTON, Ill. -- Senior Garland Cooper (Mission Viejo, Calif./Santa Margarita Catholic) and freshman Lauren Delaney (Jefferson City, Mo./Helias) have been named Big Ten Player and Pitcher of the Week, respectively, after helping Northwestern to a sweep of Iowa and Illinois during NU's final weekend of conference play.
Cooper earns her first conference weekly award this year after breaking the Big Ten's career home run record last weekend, while also tying the conference's single-season mark (21) in homers.
For the weekend, she batted .583 (7-of-12) with a double, three home runs, 11 RBIs, a 1.417 slugging percentage and a .737 on-base percentage. Cooper hit a three-run dinger on Friday against Iowa to break the all-time home run mark with the 52nd of her career. In Sunday's doubleheader against Illinois, Cooper hit her 21st homer of the season and the 53rd of her career, driving in four on the day and walking three times.
She also was walked six times during the week, including twice intentionally -- giving her 29 intentional bases on balls in her career to rank her fifth in NCAA Division I history.
Delaney picked up her third weekly honor of the season after tossing her first career no-hitter Sunday against Illinois, which entered the weekend with the nation's top home run hitting and sixth-ranked scoring offense. She was perfect through the first 4.2 innings of play before surrending a walk, which was the Illini's only baserunner save for a seventh-inning NU error.
Delaney fanned 10 batters in the game.
