Ritter and Kelly selected as the 2005 USA Softball Player's of the Year

[fastball]

Subject: Ritter and Kelly selected as the 2005 USA Softball Player's
of the Year 
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 13:19:29 -0600 
From: "Brian McCall" <bmccall(at)softball.org> 
 


Jennie Ritter and John Kelly selected as the 2005 USA Softball
Player’s of the Year

 

Oklahoma City, Okla.---USA Softball announced today the selection
of Jennie Ritter (Dexter, Mich.) as the 2005 USA Softball Female
Athlete of the Year and John Kelly (Chester, Iowa) as the 2005
USA Softball Male Athlete of the Year. These two athletes have
been submitted to the United States Olympic Committee to be considered
for the USOC Female and Male Athletes of the Year.

 

Ritter, in her first season as a member of the USA Softball National
Team, was a dominating force for the Red, White and Blue. In
her first appearance with the USA Elite Team, Ritter appeared
in three games at the 2005 Canada Cup in Surrey, B.C., where
she earned three wins. She was the workhorse of the team pitching
more innings than any other pitcher (24.2) while compiling 20
strikeouts. In the latter part of July, she led the U.S. Elite
Team to its first gold medal of the season at the Intercontinental
Cup in Madrid, Spain.  

 

Against Italy in the finals, she was the winning pitcher after
going five innings, allowing two hits and no runs to lead the
team to a 6-0 win. During the Cup, she made three appearances,
recorded two wins, pitched 11 innings without allowing a run
and recorded 16 strikeouts. For her efforts she was named as
the Most Valuable Pitcher of the Tournament.

 

In the final national team event of the season, Ritter traveled
with Team USA to the Pan Am/World Games Qualifier in Guatemala
City, Guatemala. In three starts she did not allow a run in 12
innings of work while allowing only six hits. For the second
time this year, Ritter led USA Softball to a gold medal and even
more important the top seed at the 2007 Pan Am Games and a spot
in the 2006 ISF World Championships. 

 

All of these accolades come after this 2005 USA Softball Collegiate
Player of the Year finalist led the University of Michigan to
its first ever National title. 

 

Kelly led the USA Softball Junior Men’s National Team to a fifth
place finish at the 2005 ISF Junior Men’s World Championship
in Prince Edwards Island. It was the highest finish for a USA
Junior Men’s team in more than two decades. He carried the U.S.
pitching staff through the championship pitching all but 13 innings.
In that span he logged 34 innings of work, striking out 19 while
compiling an ERA of 3.91. 

 

“John Kelly was a warrior for us during the entire tournament,”
Head Coach Tim Lyon said. “He stepped up and was ready to take
the ball every time we asked him to and gave it everything he
had.”

 

The USA Softball Women’s National Team was also nominated to
the USOC in the Team of the Year category after continuing its
winning ways into 2005, a year after winning its third consecutive
gold medal at the 2004 Olympics. 

 

In its first appearance of the year at the International Sports
Festival in Chula Vista, Calif., the team went undefeated, 5-0,
outscoring opponents 34-2. Team USA finished with a team batting
average of .364, nine homeruns and allowed only 10 hits in five
games. 

 

In an exhibition game at the Champions Cup fans saw a rematch
of the 2004 Olympic gold-winning USA and silver medalist Australia
in Irving, Calif. Team USA proved the gold medal was rightfully
theirs with a 10-0 shutout over Australia. The team turned in
11 hits and two home runs in the game.

 

At the inaugural World Cup in Oklahoma City, Team USA outscored
and out hit Japan but fell 3-1 in the championship game for a
second-place finish. 

 

In its first event outside of the U.S., the Red, White and Blue
saw a rematch against Japan at the Japan Cup. Despite finishing
second in the Japan Cup, Team USA took the overall series with
a 4-3 record, outscoring Japan, 22-8. 

 

The team wrapped up its 2005 campaign at the Pan Am/World qualifier
in Guatemala City, Guatemala, securing the top seed to the 2007
Pam American Games with a 2-0 win over Canada in the finals.
The team outscored its opponents 87-3 in nine games, also qualifying
for the 2006 World Championships. 

 

ABOUT THE ASA
The Amateur Softball Association, founded in 1933, is the National
Governing Body of softball in the United States and a member
of the United States Olympic Committee. The ASA has become one
of the nation’s largest sports organizations and now sanctions
competition in every state through a network of 87 local associations.
The ASA has grown from a few hundred teams in the early days
to over 240,000 teams today, representing a membership of more
than three million. For more information on the ASA, visit http://www.asasoftball.com/


 

ABOUT USA SOFTBALL
USA Softball is the brand created, operated and owned by the
ASA that links the USA Men’s, Women’s, Junior Boys’ and Junior
Girls’ National Team programs together. USA Softball is responsible
for training, equipping and promoting these four National Teams
to compete in international and domestic competitions. The USA
Softball Women’s National Team is one of the only two women’s
sports involved in the Olympic movement to capture three consecutive
gold medals at the Olympic Games since 1996. The U.S. women have
also won seven World Championship titles including the last five
consecutive. For more information about USA Softball, please
visit http://www.usasoftball.com/



From: "Brian McCall" <bmccall(at)softball.org> 


 

 

 

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