Shively Praised as National Pitcher of the Week

NAIA Release | TU Honor's Page

KANSAS CITY – For the third time in the 2022 season, the National Athletic Intercollegiate Association has announced its National Player-of-the-Week awards, one of which honored Taylor's own Luke Shively.

Out of a pool of 18 contestants that were nominated from across the nation, Shively was selected as the nation's Pitcher of the Week for his dominant performance against Huntington (6-10, 4-4) on Thursday, March 10th, a performance that earned him the Crossroads League Pitcher-of-the-Week award on Monday.

In that outing, the TU righty threw his second-career complete-game shutout, traversing nine innings of work in near perfection as he faced just one batter above the nine-inning minimum. Along the way, Shively struck out a career-high 12 Foresters, including eight of 12 batters between the third and sixth innings.

Furthermore, Shively grew especially comfortable pitching with nobody on-base, retiring 17-consecutive Huntington batters between the first and seventh innings.

Eventually Huntington put a hit on the board, but Shively limited that number to a mere one by the game's end, as Taylor went on to win 6-0.

With that win, the Mishawaka, Indiana, native improved to 5-0 on the season, a number that sits atop the Crossroads League win-rankings. Shively also leads the league with 46 strikeouts in his 35.0 innings of work, which spits out a mark of 11.83 strikeout-per-nine-innings. Meanwhile, Shively sits third in the league with a 1.54 earned-run average.

Shively's national award is the first for Taylor baseball since the 2014 season, when Trojan pitcher, Eric Kartman, also received the award.

Taylor Athletics now boast three National Player-of-the-Week awards in 2021-2022, as Shively joins women's soccer player, Hannah Brackenbury, and men's cross country runner, Daniel Gerber, as the third Trojan to receive such national recognition.

Shively and the Trojans (15-9, 5-3) are slated to play next on Thursday, March 17th, when they host Bethel (9-15, 3-5) and kick off a four-game series with the Pilots at 3:00 pm.