Shannon Downey
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Sport:
Softball |
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Year
Graduated: 1994 |
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Year
Inducted: 2002 |
Eight years after she pitched her final game for the Terrier
softball team, Shannon Downey still is ranked among the top
five all-time Terriers in six career pitching statistics.
She is third in complete games with 56, fifth in shutouts
with 19, fifth in innings pitched with 423-and-a-third, third
in strikeouts with 544, third in wins with 51, and second
in ERA with 0.66.
Those were just her pitching totals. At the bat, she had
a .291 career batting average, which still ranks as the sixth
best average in school history, while her .433 slugging percentage
ranks fourth.
And, she played just two years for the Terriers!
Imagine what her totals would have been had she begun her
collegiate career at B.U. rather than at Palomar Community
College in California? A native of Oceanside, CA, which is
located in San Diego County, Shannon transferred to Boston
University after her sophomore year.
"I wanted to move in order to experience life on the
East Coast," Shannon recently said. "I also wanted
to go to a school where I could focus on more than just softball."
She made an impact from her first game as she compiled a
25-5 record along with an 0.82 ERA. She also had 256 strikeouts,
23 complete games, and seven shutouts, as the Terriers finished
with a 29-12 record, won the conference title as well as the
ECAC tournament.
For her efforts, she was named Northeast Region First Team
All-American, First Team All-Conference as well as the Conference
Pitcher of the Year and the Conference tournament's MVP.
As hard as it might seem to believe, she improved on her totals
her senior year. She was 26-5 with an 0.52 ERA. She had 288
strikeouts, 12 shutouts, and completed an incredible 31-of-32
games she started.
Again, she was named First Team All-Conference, as well as
its Pitcher of the Year. She was also named First Team All-ECAC
and All-New England. The team compiled a 35-7 record and repeated
as the conference tournament winner. They advanced to the
ECAC tournament but lost in the semifinals.
