OU's Ricketts Wins Honda Sports Award

Keilani Ricketts added to her already stellar resume on Thursday by winning the Honda Sports Award for softball for the second year in a row and becoming a finalist for the 2013 Honda Cup, the Collegiate Women Sports Awards announced.

"It's an amazing honor to represent my team and my sport at the Honda Cup award ceremony for such a prestigious honor," Ricketts said. "I would like to thank the Honda Sports Awards voters and my teammates for making this incredible opportunity possible."

Since the introduction of the award in 1977, Ricketts becomes the seventh player to win the award more than once, joining such notable players as Danielle Lawrie (Washington), Cat Osterman (Texas), Jennie Finch (Arizona) and Lisa Fernandez (UCLA).

The two-time USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year, Ricketts helped lead the Oklahoma softball team to the 2013 National Championship, the second in program history. In the title-clinching win, she drove in all four runs in a 4-0 victory over Tennessee, including a three-run home run.

Ricketts was 35-1 this season with a 1.23 earned run average and 350 strikeouts in 238.1 innings pitched. She posted the second most shutouts in the nation this year with 16 and ranked third in wins (35), fifth in hits allowed per seven innings (3.61), sixth in total strikeouts (350) and eighth in both ERA (1.23) and strikeouts per seven innings (10.3).

Additionally, Ricketts hit .379 at the plate with 15 home runs and 60 runs batted in. She slugged .725, got on base at a .534 clip and was a perfect 9-9 on stolen bases.

The CWSA presents the Honda Sports Award annually to top women athletes in 12 NCAA-sanctioned sports. With this honor, Ricketts, a senior health and exercise science major, becomes a finalist for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year and the 2013 Honda Cup. She was chosen for the Honda Sports Award by a vote of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.