Sanders and Smith earn CUSA weekly awards

DALLAS – In the final weekend of the regular season, Conference USA announced Monday that fifth-year Taylor Sanders and freshman Rylan Smith were tabbed with weekly awards from the league. Sanders was named the CUSA Player of the Week, her second of the season, while Smith earned CUSA Freshman of the Week for the first weekly award of her career.

The Hilltoppers’ all-time home runs leader broke the school’s all-time RBI record (179) with a back-to-back RBI double and single against UTEP Friday evening. Slugging 1.000 over the weekend, she also broke WKU’s single-season home runs record with her 16th on the season Saturday. Sanders garnered a .500 batting average, four hits, and four RBIs over the series with a .667 on-base percentage, as she also drew three walks.

With one start and 8.2 innings of work over the weekend, Smith generated a 0.81 ERA. Seeing action in all three games, she gave up only one earned run off of six hits and allowed a walk. The Tennessee native earned four strikeouts from the circle, holding UTEP batters to a .194 average at the plate.

The Hilltoppers head to Las Cruces, N.M. for the 2024 CUSA Softball Tournament this week as the two-seed. They will play the winner from the [3] LA Tech/[6] UTEP game on Thursday, May 9 at 3:30 p.m. CT. The game will be available to stream on ESPN+.