March 24, 2010

Story courtesy of Lubbock Christian Athletic Media Relations

LUBBOCK, Texas - With four home runs last week, Lubbock Christian University (Texas) softball's Kim Frazier has already posted 24 home runs on the season, which is a Sooner Athletic Conference single-season record and the second highest single-season total in NAIA history. With six games scheduled for this week, she has the opportunity to break the NAIA record of 29 owned by Tabitha Foster of Peru State from the 2007 season.

The home run total for the 5-4 sophomore from Buena Park, Calif., is coming at a rapid pace. The national collegiate home run record is held by Laura Espinoza-Watson, who hit 37 home runs in 1995 as a senior at Arizona. Espinoza-Watson is currently a first-year high school softball coach at Empire High School in Tucson, Ariz. The closest anyone has come challenging the record was last season, as Stacie Chambers of Arizona connected on 31 homers. At the NAIA level, the closest anyone has come to snapping Foster's mark was in 2007, as Trevecca Nazarene's Jennifer Perkins was chasing Foster's mark during the same season.

It is hard to gauge a pace on Frazier's numbers since LCU played 70 games in 2008 and 61 in 2009. Thirty games into the season she is batting .527 with 24 home runs and 64 RBI. She is averaging 0.8 home runs per game, which is a clip that would shatter the national collegiate record of 0.57 set last season by Jessika Anastos (24 home runs in 42 games) of NCAA Division II UC-Colorado Springs. Anastos currently has nine home runs in 22 games.

There are five additional single-season records Frazier could eclipse. She has 46 runs scored on the year and the NAIA record stands at 90 (Melissa Dowlen - Athens State, 1994) with the national record sitting at 101 (Jenny Dalton - Arizona, 1995). Frazier has 48 hits through 30 games and the NAIA record is 107 (Cheryl Bolding - Point Loma Nazarene, 1994) and the national record is a whopping 132 (Alison McCutcheon - Arizona, 1997). The RBI total stands at 64 for Frazier, with the NAIA record at 99 (Melissa Dowlen, Athens State, 1994) and the national record at 128 (Laura Espinoza-Watson - Arizona, 1995). Frazier's clip of 2.13 runs-batted-in per game is slightly under the national record of 2.87 (Rachel Clayton - Bates College, 1988). The Lady Chaps slugger has 132 total bases, which is closing in on the NAIA record of 197 (Melissa Dowlen, Athens State, 1994). Her 132 total bases is 34 ahead of the next closest player in the NAIA this season, which is teammate Priscilla FaGaines, who has 98. Finally, Frazier has a 1.451 slugging percentage and the NAIA record stands at 1.120 (Melissa Dowlen - Athens State, 1994) and the national record is 1.298 (Angela Estes - Miles College, 2003).

Frazier and the Lady Chaps return to the diamond Thursday at 2 p.m. for a Sooner Athletic Conference doubleheader on the road at Rogers State University (Okla.).