DENVER – Nevada’s Ashley Butera and Hawai‘i’s Stephanie Ricketts have been named the Verizon Western Athletic Conference Hitter and Pitcher of the Week, respectively, for Feb. 27-March 4. This is the first-ever honor for Butera and the second of the season and ninth overall for Ricketts.

Butera, a freshman catcher player from Saugus, Calif. (Saugus HS), hit .533 (8-for-15) with a triple and four home runs in five games for the Wolf Pack at the San Diego Classic last weekend. Butera recorded 22 total bases as she had an on-base percentage of .563 and a slugging percentage of 1.467. She drove in seven runs and scored four. Butera started behind the plate all five games and played errorless ball at catcher. In Nevada’s win over San Diego State, she started the Wolf Pack comeback with a solo home run in the fourth inning.

Ricketts, a senior from San Jose, Calif., went 3-0 in the Bank of Hawaii Invitational with a 1.40 ERA and 27 strikeouts. In a 2-1 win over No. 20 Florida State, Ricketts retired the first 13 batters and faced just two batters over the minimum, giving up one run on two hits with a walk and nine strikeouts. She also became the all-time winningest pitcher in Hawai‘i history with the victory. In Sunday’s championship game, she fired a one-hit shutout with 11 strikeouts. For the week, Ricketts held opponents to a .106 batting average. She is now 10-0 with 10 complete-game wins this season and has 84 career victories with 96 complete games and 28 shutouts.

Other Hitter of the Week nominees included: Stacie Toney of Brigham Young hit .500 with a pair of doubles and two RBI last week ... Fresno State’s Brenna Moss hit .444 with a triple and three RBI ... Jessica Iwata of Hawai‘i hit .308 with a double, a home run and seven RBI on the week ... Louisiana Tech’s Katelynn Hill hit .375 with two doubles, a homer and five RBI ... Kelsey Dodd of New Mexico State hit .375 with a double, a triple and five RBI on the week … San Jose State’s Michelle Cox hit .429 with a triple and two RBI on the week ... Lindsey Marquez of Utah State had six RBI on the week.

Other Pitcher of the Week nominees included: Tori Almond of Brigham Young went 2-0 with a 0.58 ERA and 14 strikeouts ... Fresno State’s Michelle Moses went 2-1 with a 1.40 ERA and 26 strikeouts last week ... Michelle Jones of Louisiana Tech posted a 2-1 record on the week ... New Mexico State’s Karysta Donisthorpe picked up a pair of wins and had a 0.69 ERA with 12 strikeouts on the week ... Madison Fish of San Jose State went 2-0 with nine strikeouts ... Utah State’s Mandy Harmon went 2-1 with 13 strikeouts last week.