Escobedo up for ESPY
6/25/2011
TAMPA, Fla. — USA Softball Junior Women’s National Team member Dallas Escobedo is nominated for the “Best College Female Athlete” ESPY (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly) Award, ESPN announced Friday. Escobedo concluded her freshman campaign at Arizona State with a record of 37-3 in the circle, including a 10-0 post season that led the Sun Devils to an NCAA Division I Softball National Championship.
Fans can vote for Escobedo online at espn.com/espys, by mobile device also at espn.com/espys, or on the ESPN Facebook page (facebook.com/espn). In addition, fans can follow the official ESPYs Twitter page (twitter.com/ESPYs) and tweet about their favorite nominees, using the tag @ESPYs to have their votes counted. The deadline to vote is July 9.
Hosted by comedian Seth Myers, the ESPYs will take place at 8 p.m. CT on July 13 at the Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles, with the ceremony broadcast live on ESPNHD. Nominated in the “Best College Female Athlete” category are Penn State volleyball player Blair Brown, Notre Dame soccer player Melissa Henderson, USC swimmer Katinka Hosszu and Connecticut basketball player Maya Moore. Like Escobedo, Henderson and Brown led their teams to a National Championship.
At the 2011 NCAA Women’s College World Series (WCWS) in Oklahoma City, the Arizona State freshman was named the Co-Most Outstanding Player for pitching Arizona State to the title. She pitched every inning of the WCWS for the Sun Devils, becoming the first freshman pitcher to win the Championship Game since UCLA’s Heather Compton in 1990. Escobedo was born in 1992.
Arizona State beat Florida 14-4 and 7-2 in best-of-three Championship Series. In Game 1 of the finale, she allowed five hits while striking out seven. Escobedo allowed four hits in Game 2. She struck out five. She finished the season with 326 strikeouts.
In the first week of the season, February 7-13, Escobedo was named the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Week following a 4-0 collegiate debut. She was 4-0 at Kajikawa Classic in Tempe, Ariz., that week, working 18.1 innings, holding opponents to a .143 batting average.
Prior to starting at Arizona State, Escobedo was named to the 2010-11 USA Softball Junior Women’s National Team. In August, she helped Team USA to the Gold Medal at the III Pan American Championship (18-Under) in Bogota, Colombia. Escobedo pitched 18.0 innings over five games, allowed five hits, one run (earned) and two walks while striking out 23. While she was 3-0 in the circle, including the Championship Game against Canada, she was also 3-for-6 (.500) at the plate with an RBI.
Escobedo is currently in Florida with the Junior Women’s National Team for an exhibition doubleheader against the 2011 USA Softball Women’s National Team at the Plant City Stadium in Plant City, Fla. The team will also play the Women’s National Team on June 29 in Salem, Va., and July 1 in Bowie, Md. In December, Escobedo and the Junior Women’s National Team will play at the International Softball Federation (ISF) IX Junior Women's World Championship (19-and-under) in Cape Town, South Africa.
Ticket information for the USA Softball exhibitions is available at www.usasoftball.com.
About 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 76 local associations. The ASA has grown from a few hundred teams in the early days to over 210,000 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 nine World Championship titles including the last seven consecutive as well as claimed four World Cup of Softball titles. For more information about USA Softball, please visit http://www.usasoftball.com/.