RANKINGS
EVENTS
I COMMITTED
COLLEGE
ABOUT
Congrats to Shelby Lowe, the Auburn freshman who earned SEC Freshman of the Week honors announced Tuesday.
Here’s what the conference released said about her impressive performances in the circle for the Tigers:
Auburn’s Shelby Lowe, a freshman left-handed pitcher from Carrollton, Ala., tossed a complete-game shutout at No. 18/20 Missouri on Sunday. Lowe struck out 11 batters to help Auburn earn its first win in Columbia since 2015 and its first shutout win in SEC play since 2019. She also started game one against the Tigers, fanning six batters in 7.1 innings of work.
Shelby was ranked #11 in the 2020 Extra Elite 100 and, with her and four others in the top 100, we ranked the Auburn signing class that year at #7 in the nation. Extra Inning Softball also had her at #8 in the Pitcher Position rankings.
When she signed with Auburn in November of 2019, the following tweet was sent out by the school:
This Alabama native is staying HOME!
• PGF 16U National Champion
• 2019 Super All-State Team
• Led Alabama with a 15.7 strikeouts per seven innings markWelcome Shelby Lowe to the #Auburn Family! #WarEagle pic.twitter.com/y16ksIlLLi
— Auburn Softball (@AuburnSoftball) November 13, 2019
Here’s what we wrote about Shelby in her Extra Elite 100 bio:
Shelby Lowe, P/1B, Birmingham Thunderbolts-Dorsett (Auburn)
If there was an MVP given at PGF 16U Nationals, it would have been Shelby Lowe who carried her Bolts team to 10 wins and the Premier title. Shelby, who committed to Auburn as a freshman was all but unstoppable as she regularly kept batters off-balance and would record double-digit strikeouts regularly, as many as 13 or 14 per game. She has a hard-to-resist riseball, but is a cerebral pitcher who went low in the zone in the championship win to keep the A’s-Mercado team off-balance. A bulldog in the circle who refuses to back down, she is a 5-foot-10 lefty with great spins and movement that make her pitches even harder to resist. Playing for Pickens Academy (Carrollton, Alabama) about 30 miles from Tuscaloosa, Shelby came very close to winning a state title as she led Academy to a 29-61 record and Class AA state runner-up finish as she went 20-4-1 with a 0.63 ERA and 347 K’s in 166 2/3rd innings with 13 shutouts, six no-hitters and two perfect games. If Shelby can continue her amazing run against 18U elite competition, she will end up as a Top 5 player in the 2020 class and continue to draw comparisons to another tough championship-winning hurler–Paige Parker.
We selected Shelby as the PGF 16U MVP after that title-winning performance and in 2019, she made the PGF All-Tournament Team again as she went 4-1 with a 1.22 ERA and 42 strikeouts in 40.1 innings to help the Bolts to a fifth-place finish at PGF.
The title win in 2018 came during a tough time for the Thunderbolts organization as one of their beloved former players, Alex Wilcox, died from ovarian cancer just weeks before.
Below is the story of Shelby’s championship team that summer and also an Extra Star Power feature we did on her…
*****
PGF 16U Premier Nationals: Bolts Break Through to Win Championship After Bittersweet Summer
Originally published Aug. 5, 2018 on Extra Inning Softball
You couldn’t be blamed if you were found rooting for Keith Dorsett’s 16U team this year.
After losing the PGF 16U Platinum National Championship last summer to the Firecrackers-Utah team 7-4, this year’s squad tasted great success over the last two months including winning a title in Boulder and finishing second at the DeMarini Invitational, but the one goal the team so badly had eluded them: a national championship.
Coach Dorsett explained the significance of Saturday’s game, saying, “I came here six years ago and I can remember sitting in the stands behind home plate at a championship game. When they played ‘We are the Champions’ and I saw the winning team run out on the field, I looked down on my arms and had chill bumps everywhere.”
Still, there was concern that the team would even be able to field enough players as losses impacted the team including one team member who had to go to school and another, his daughter Abigail, who had to stay home in Alabama after turning her ankle.
As this week rolled on, Dorsett only had 11 players who were able to play and wondered how they would impact the team at PGF.
Off the field, on June 25, the entire Birmingham Thunderbolts organization was hit hard by the passing at age 18 of beloved former player, Alex Wilcox, who died from Ovarian cancer while on the Mississippi State softball team. The effects of losing such a close family member to the organization has continued to impact the program.
On the field, despite the great finishes, the team knew it had to remain humble, continue to work hard and keep an eye on the prize at the end of the rainbow.
Shelby Lowe, the Auburn-committed pitcher, who has really had a great summer admitted, “We have been really working towards the championship game and we’ve been working hard all week. It’s been a really tough last few days and the bracket games have been tough!”
Lowe and other pitchers had done their part: and in all six of the Bolts wins this week prior to Saturday’s championship, the pitching staff has given up no more than one run in any game (six with one-run, two with no runs).
Against another team that ran undefeated in the Winner’s Bracket in Dave Mercado’s A’s 16U team, the Bolts felt the key to the game would be jumping out to an earlier lead and then trusting Lowe to take it from there… and that’s exactly what happened.
In the bottom of the 1st, the Bolts team jumped out to a 2-0 lead as second baseman and Auburn commit Carlee McCondichie hit a leadoff double and outfielder Brylie St. Clair, who is headed to Mississippi State, walked prior to another MSU verbal, shortstop Madisyn Kennedy, stroking a two-out RBI single to give Lowe all the runs she would need.
In the top of the 3rd inning, the A’s would get its sole run on an infield error as outfielder Makayla Jordan would hit a leadoff single to left and come home on the two-out miscue.
A 2-1 game for just a half inning, the Bolts added two more via another pair of A’s errors on one play where the A’s shortstop threw the ball into right field and the right fielder threw the ball back to the second baseman only to have the ball roll into left field allowing two runners to scamper home.
Ultimately, that’s how the final score, 4-1 in favor of the Alabama-based squad, would end up because Shelby Lowe was, well, Shelby Lowe.
The hurler allowed just two hits, a pair of singles in the 3rd inning to Allison Beecher (Colorado State) and Jessica Acosta (Ole Miss), which helped the A’s get its sole run. Lowe had seven strikeouts with the one run being unearned.
She and the coaches, Lowe said after the game, had a plan in place to keep the A’s batters off balance.
“I knew they were going to expect the riseball,” Lowe told Extra Inning Softball’s Brentt Eads, “that’s my dominant pitch, so I tried to go down in the zone and work down so they couldn’t hit balls out and it worked.”
Said her coach following the win, “To me, she (Shelby) is the best pitcher in the country hands down right now… nothing fazes her. You hear teams saying, ‘We have a game plan to lay off the riseball,’ but there’s not many that can lay off that pitch.”
Lowe was so dominant, she had a strikeout in every inning except the 7th and didn’t allow the A’s to build any momentum.
“It was surreal out there,” said Kennedy, who had the clutch two RBI single in the 1st. “This has been a dream ever since I was a little girl; ‘Little Me’ would be pretty proud of us, I just can’t believe it’s happening right now.”
“The experience is unreal,” agreed Coach Dorsett. “This event is the best of the best and I’ve had four or five of these players for a long time and they–and the rest of the team–mean the world to me. This is something I’ll cherish for a long time.”
*****
Extra Star Power: 2020 Bama Southpaw Shelby Lowe “Pitches Her Heart Out”
Originally published Sept. 13, 2019 on Extra Inning Softball
Shelby Lowe burst onto the national softball scene in 2018 when she tossed a two-hit complete game with seven strikeouts to lead Birmingham Thunderbolts-Dorsett to a 4-1 victory over Athletics-Mercado in the PGF 16U Premier National title game.
It was the first PGF national championship in any age group for the Birmingham Thunderbolts organization.
“Shelby is a competitor and as a pitcher that’s the best skill to have,” Bolts 18U coach Rocky Thompson said. “Shelby has been a huge and vital part of our program. We have to give Keith Dorsett credit for that. Shelby was a big part of our organization winning its first PGF National Championship.
“Shelby doesn’t get rattled and loves to get those strikeouts. She spins it well. Even though her favorite pitch is the rise ball, she has embraced the usage of her other pitches to make her rise ball even more effective. Even though we talk about her pitching a lot, she is also very mobile. She is great at fielding her position and able to make plays on the short game. She is actually really quick when it comes down to making plays on bunts.”
Lowe is a standout pitcher, but her leadership and ability to motivate her teammates makes her even more valuable.
“The success that Shelby has been able to accomplish has made an impact on our younger players here with the Bolts,” Thompson said.
“We are a family here with the Bolts, so they are all trying to be like their big sister now. Shelby is a great individual and teammate with an awesome personality.”
The Auburn-committed 2020 southpaw went 4-1 with a 1.22 ERA and 42 strikeouts in 40.1 innings to help the Bolts to a fifth-place finish at the PGF 18U Premier Nationals this past summer.
She also made the PGF 18U Premier All-Tournament Team.
Former All-American Carlee McCondichie, a former teammate of Lowe’s with the Bolts, can’t wait for Lowe to join her at Auburn.
“Shelby is a great player,” McCondichie said. “I love playing behind her. She always has momentum and always does her very best. Even when we pitch her many games in a row, she pitches until she physically can’t do it anymore. She pitches her heart out every time she steps out on the field.”
“(For) the Bolts, she led us to our very first PGF National Championship. Our team changed history with her (on) the mound. She will go down as one of the best pitchers in the country. I can’t wait to spend the next three years with her when she gets down here with me (at) Auburn.”
Go inside “Extra Star Power” to learn more about one of the top 2020 prospects in the nation…