Aurora University senior Taylor Petersen has been named Louisville Slugger/NFCA Division III Player of the Week for the week of Apr. 11-17. For the week, Petersen hit .524 (11-for-21) with four doubles, five RBIs and three runs in six games. She went 2-for-7 with an RBI in a run scored in a doubleheader split with Wheaton (Ill.). She went 3-for-4, scored a run and drove in another in a 6-3 loss to Carthage.
Petersen was brilliant in the circle for the Spartans, recording the win in three of the team’s four wins for the week. In the three complete-game performances, she allowed 11 hits and three earned runs for a 1.00 ERA. She recorded two strikeouts to just two walks.
She allowed one run, none earned, on four hits in the win over Wheaton. She followed that up with a complete game outing against Carthage in which she gave up three runs on four hits in the winning effort. Two days later she threw a complete-game shutout against Robert Morris, allowing just three hits while registering 11 strikeouts.
Petersen, the school’s career strikeouts and shutouts leader, is a perfect 15-0 on the year in leading Aurora to a 23-4-1 record. She has a nation’s fourth-best 0.29 ERA and 148 strikeouts in 95 and one-third innings of work. She has allowed just eight runs, while opponents are hitting at a .131 clip against her.
Offensively, Petersen is one of the team’s top hitters with a .435 average. She has three home runs, six doubles and two triples, and she has scored 28 runs and driven in 17.
