NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – The Atlantic 10 Conference has named George Mason senior Haley Taormina as its Softball Player of the Week. Fordham freshman Holly Beeman was selected as the league’s Pitcher of the Week and Dayton freshman Izzy Kemp earned Rookie of the Week honors. The awards, the first of the season, were announced Tuesday and are for games played Feb. 6-12.
 
In her first three games of the season, senior Haley Taormina went 6-for-12 (.500), including two doubles and a walk-off triple. She leads Mason in RBI with three. She also leads in average (.500), OPS (1.333), slugging (.833), and total bases (10). The utility player from Chesapeake, Va., also opened the season playing third, committing no errors on the hot corner.
 
Beeman made just one appearance at the NFCA Leadoff Classic but it was a doozy, nearly tossing a no-hitter in her collegiate debut against Prairie View A&M. The right-hander from Lake Oswego, Ore., had allowed just two walks through six frames before a leadoff single ended her attempt at history. That run ended up scoring after a pair of errors, tying the game, but the Rams rallied in the seventh to walk off winners and give Beeman her first career victory. She finished just the two walks, the lone hit, and six strikeouts.
 
Kemp led the team with a 0.91 ERA and 27 strikeouts over 15.1 innings of work as she appeared in four of Dayton's five games this weekend. She tallied seven strikeouts to one hit to collect her first collegiate save in a 10-5 win over Providence Friday. Save number two for the right-hander from Westfield, Ind., came against Fairleigh Dickinson Saturday after she struck out five to one walk and zero hits over 3.0 innings in a combined shutout win. Kemp was one out away from a complete game in her first collegiate start against Stetson on Saturday night. She collected a career-high nine strikeouts against the Hatters in the 2-1 loss.