A pair of Bowling Green State University standouts have swept the Mid-American Conference’s Scholar-Athlete-of-the-Week awards, the league office announced on Wednesday.
Gage Schenk (BGSU baseball) has been named the Male Scholar-Athlete of the Week, and Payton Gottshall (Falcon softball) is the Female S-A-O-W award winner. Each pitching phenom earns the scholar-athlete honor for the first time.
Both players were named MAC Pitcher of the Week in their respective sports on Tuesday.
Schenk, a senior from Wapakoneta (Wapakoneta H.S.), put together an incredible outing for the Falcons on April 22 against Western Michigan at Steller Field. Getting the starting nod on the mound, Schenk was able to toss all nine innings while giving up just four hits and one walk against the Broncos.
The Falcons’ four-game weekend series with WMU resulted in 87 total runs scored, but Schenk was able to hold the Broncos scoreless to start the weekend in the 4-0 BGSU victory. The nine-inning complete game shutout by Schenk was the first for the Orange and Brown since the 2015 season. He threw a total of 114 pitches in his first complete game at the collegiate level.
In the classroom, Schenk has a 3.903 cumulative grade-point average as an accounting major.
Gottshall, a native of Massillon (Perry H.S.), threw a perfect game against Akron on Sunday, for her third no-hitter and second perfect game of the season. There have been four perfect games in school history, and Gottshall has three of them. She needed just 53 pitches, throwing 39 for strikes, to throw that five-inning perfecto vs. the Zips.
Earlier in the week, Gottshall picked up a win at league-leading Miami, then suffered a loss to the RedHawks the next day despite allowing just two hits in her complete-game effort.
On Saturday, she earned a complete-game win over Akron in the first game of a DH, before starting the second game and working into the third inning. Gottshall had 46 strikeouts in 27 innings of work on the week.
In the classroom, Gottshall has a 3.472 cumulative GPA as an intervention specialist major.
The Scholar-Athlete of the Week Award is presented to one male and one female student-athlete each week. Nominees must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better and must have performed well during the previous week’s competition. An institution can nominate up to one male and one female student-athlete per week in any of that current season’s sports. The winners are selected by a representative of the MAC’s Faculty Athletics Representatives.
Schenk and the baseball Falcons head to Ypsilanti, Michigan, this weekend, facing Eastern Michigan in a four-game series. The series opener is set for a 4 p.m. first pitch today.
Gottshall and the BGSU softball team will hit the road as well, beginning a three-game weekend set at Ball State with a single game today at 3.
