St. John
Fisher College senior #Amanda Shevchuk# has been named as the Empire 8 Conference Pitcher of the Week, and has also been tabbed as the College’s Female Athlete of the Week for the week ending May 3, 2009.
Shevchuk was named the Empire 8 Conference Tournament’s Most Valuable Player after leading Fisher to its second Conference Championship in as many seasons. With the win, the Cardinals secured an automatic berth into the NCAA Division III Championship, marking the third time in program history that Fisher has advanced to the NCAA Championship.
In a four-game week, Shevchuk earned three wins in four complete-game efforts to guide the Cardinals. The senior right-hander worked 32.0 innings, and allowed just five runs (three earned) while striking out 16 and not walking more than two batters in any game during the week.
Shevchuk threw all 11 innings of Fisher’s 3-2 win over Alfred University to open the Tournament. The Saxons broke a scoreless tie in the fourth with a homerun to left field, but Shevchuk held steady from then on, and allowed no earned runs in the win. The Cardinals plated runs in the sixth and seventh to tie the game, before Fisher advanced with a walk-off single four innings later.
She fanned five batters in a seven-inning, 4-1 win over RIT to advance to the Conference Finals against Ithaca College. Fisher rallied to defeat Ithaca in back-to-back games in last year’s final, and the Bombers nearly turned the tables with a 2-1 win in the first game of the double-elimination tourney. The two squads battled through seven innings of a pitcher’s duel before Shevchuk worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh, and Samantha Vara (Hamburg/Boston) delivered the game-winning single in the bottom of the eighth to give Fisher the victory.
Shevchuk improved to 16-6 over the course of the week, and leads the team in innings pitched (161.0), strikeouts (121), appearances (29), and earned run average (2.22).
Fisher (30-10) will take on Keuka College (23-6) at noon on Thursday at Ithaca College in the NCAA Division III Championship Regional.