Arizona Softball’s Miranda Stoddard has been named the Big 12 Player of the Week for the second time this season, announced by the conference on Tuesday.
Stoddard led Arizona to the program’s first-ever Big 12 series win and first-ever Big 12 sweep when the Wildcats swept the Utes last week. She led the team with a .714 batting average, two home runs, a double, five RBI, and a 1.714 slugging percentage.
The graduate student hit a pair of two-run home runs against the Utes to bring her season total to nine home runs. In Arizona’s run-rule win over Utah to open the weekend, Stoddard drove in three runs with a two-run home run and an RBI double. She hit her second home run of the weekend in the Wildcats’ final game against Utah to sweep the series.
Additionally, Stoddard picked up her sixth win in the circle after pitching 3.1 innings in relief in the second game against Utah.
Following the sixth week of the season, Stoddard leads the Big 12 in home runs (9) and home runs per game (0.33).
Stoddard and the Wildcats will head to GCU on Wednesday, March 19 for a midweek game before heading to Arizona State for a three-game series beginning Friday, March 21.
There is a reality to an athlete’s career coming to an end. For some the perspective is immediate, for others it comes in a moment where they realize there is no more pursuit of a championship, no more celebrating on the field with teammates and no more day-to-day grind that is infused with frustration, fatigue and excitement all at the same time.
Sometimes that reality comes at the hands of an unexpected grind that halts the momentum of the passion of game you love. To say Miranda Stoddard is back on track on and off the field would be an understatement.
The fifth-year senior had quite the journey from a standout career at Orange Lutheran High School in Southern California to Kentucky where she played for three seasons and graduated early, deciding to forego her senior season. Bypassing your senior season on paper would seem odd to most people, but it isn’t when you’ve hit a wall that is far too common in college athletics, burnout. It can get the best of any athlete and depending on the player, it can takeaway any joy they have in the game and it did as she wrapped up her career at Kentucky.
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