Rock Hill, S.C. – Ashton VanHouse and Riley Huge have been named the Comporium Student-Athletes of the Month.
 
VanHouse played and started in 18 games of the 22 games the Eagles played in the month of March. She had a batting average of .313, stole eight bases, hit a triple, batting in three runs, got 18 hits in 60 at-bats and came home to score 10 times. In the home double-header with Gardner-Webb on Sun., Mar. 24 (a 3-0 victory and a 5-1 loss), VanHouse combined to steal two bases and went 5-of-7 at the plate overall, scoring twice and hitting a triple. At the time, it was the 62^nd steal of her career, and put her at the time in third on the all-time steals list in Winthrop history.
 
Huge simply put had a month to remember for himself. He played in five games, starting four of them. He pitched 29.0 innings, giving up 20 hits, nine runs, nine walks, striking out 64 batters and going 3-1 with an ERA of 3.14.
 
His best game in March was an 8-0 victory against Maine on Saturday, Mar. 1. In his lone start of the week in the first game of the three-game home series with Maine (the Saturday games being a doubleheader), Huge pitched 7.2 innings, allowing only one hit and two walks while recording 20 of his 23 outs via strikeout.
 
His 20 strikeouts are believed to be the all-time single-game Big South record and are the most by any NCAA pitcher since 2017. He struck out the first six hitters he faced before permitting a baserunner, and of his 23 outs, he factored into 22 of the 23 comprised of 20 strikeouts and two groundouts back to the mound. With this performance, Huge broke the Winthrop single-game strikeout record previously held by Kevin Slowey (19 vs. NYIT on Apr. 12, 2003).
 
His 20-strikeout game vs. Maine thrust both him and the Eagles baseball program into the national spotlight and Huge earned national pitcher of the week honors by three collegiate baseball organizations: NCBWA, NCAA and Perfect Game and was also named the Big South Starting Pitcher of the Week twice in the month of March.
 
This is the first time that an Eagle has won a national player of the week honors by the NCBWA since Jacob Dempsey on May 11, 2006.