NEW ORLEANS – University of South Alabama softball's Devin Brown was named Community Coffee Pitcher of the Week Tuesday afternoon as announced by the Sun Belt Conference office.  The honor is the third of the season and 10th of Brown's career.  

Her selection marks the 20th time in program history that USA has had a pitcher earn the weekly accolade and the 33rd conference weekly honor for a Jaguar.

DJ Sanders of Louisiana-Lafayette was named the league's player of the week for a Sun Belt-best fifth time this spring.

After missing the previous two weekends due to illness, Brown returned to the circle and had a huge impact in helping South Alabama earn an important Sun Belt Conference road sweep at Louisiana-Monroe improving to 28-17 overall and 10-12 in Sun Belt play.  

In her two outings, Brown went 1-0 with a 0.00 earned run average, allowing just one unearned run in her nine innings of work while striking out 10 and holding the Warhawks to a .182 batting average during the series.

In her return to the circle, the Jag righty posted her fifth-straight complete game and her 16th of the season.  After USA had tied the game up at 1-1 in the top half of the sixth, ULM looked as if it were going to retake the lead in the home half has Hunter Hogan recorded a lead-off triple.  With her back against the wall, Brown settled down and got Cheyanne Lyon to pop out to Kristian Foster at short for the first out of the inning.  After issuing a one-out walk to put runners at the corners, Brown was able to get Jesse Watts to pop out in foul territory where she was called out when Samantha Agamaite – who was in the on-deck area – was ruled to have interfered with Savanna Mayo's attempt to catch the ball as she didn't make an effort to get out of the way.  Brown then retired Agamaite as the Warhawk catcher flied out to left to end the inning and escape the jam and keep the game tied at 1-1.

USA would eventually pick up the 2-1 victory in the ninth on Kaleigh Todd's inside-the-park home run and a scoreless bottom half of the inning by Brown.

In Sunday's series finale with South holding a four-run lead with no outs and a runner at third in the seventh, Brown entered in relief and retired all three batters that she faced to preserve the Jag win.  The junior right-hander got Hogan to fly out to left for the first out of the inning and then struck out Lyon – the 667th strikeout of her career, moving her past former Jag All-American and current South pitching coach Hannah Campbell (2011-14) for second place on the program's all-time chart.  Brown is just 68 strikeouts away from Beth Pilgrim's (2007-10) mark of 735.  South clinched the series sweep one batter later when Brown got Melanie Coyne to pop out to Mayo at third.

Entering Tuesday night's contest against No. 17/18 LSU (34-14, 9-9 SEC), Brown leads the club with a 14-6 record, 160 strikeouts and nine shutouts in 137.1 innings of work.  She currently leads the Sun Belt in opposing batting average (.189) and is second in both earned run average (1.73), while also ranking among the conference leaders in several other categories – strikeouts (third), strikeouts looking (39, fifth), hits allowed (94, fourth), runs allowed (36, second) and earned runs allowed (34, tied-second), among other categories.  The Mobile, native also ranks among the NCAA leaders in shutouts (eighth), strikeouts (29th), hits allowed (46th), strikeouts per 7 innings (8.2, 36th) and ERA (56th).

First pitch for the midweek contest versus the Tigers is set for 6 p.m. at Tiger Park.  The game will be aired on SECNetwork+ and can be seen online at ESPN3.com.  Both the audio broadcast and live stats of the contest can also be found at www.USAJaguars.com.  Fans can also follow along with in-game updates at the official softball Twitter page @USAJagsSoftball.

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).
    
Join the Bullpen Club, the softball specific support club of the Jaguar Athletic Fund.  Members have access to purchase parking passes and receive Jaguar Softball gear.  All donations to the Bullpen Club go directly to support the South Alabama softball program.  For more information on how you can join visit:  jaguarathleticfund.com/bullpenclub

—USA—