Captain Shreve\u2019s Mikel-Ann Ricardo garnered enough votes this week to win the Times online poll for Athlete of the Week, sponsored by Raising Cane\u2019s Chicken Fingers and the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission.<\/p>\n
A standout softball player for the Lady Gators, Ricardo becomes the third Captain Shreve winner in the non-football poll for the 2021-22 school year. It\u2019s the third time in four seasons for Ricardo to win the award. She joins previous winners that include Captain Shreve\u2019s Elexa Beaudoin<\/a>, Northwood\u2019s Tucker McCabe<\/a> and Calvary\u2019s KJ Kennon<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ricardo and her supporters racked up 22,650 votes, a solid 41% of the 55,222 votes cast in the weekly online recognition. Those numbers allowed Ricardo to top a field of 11 additional candidates, including Northwood softball player Hannah Ward, who made a strong run for the recognition with 13,772 votes (25%).<\/p>\n Ricardo will receive a backpack, a boxed lunch combo and some additional swag courtesy of Raising Cane\u2019s. She\u2019ll also receive two tickets to the 2022 FIVB Volleyball Nations League Tuesday contest in the Brookshire Grocery Arena this summer featuring the USA volleyball team playing on U.S. soil for the first time since winning the gold medal in Tokyo. The U.S. will play the Dominican Republic on May 31, Canada on June 3, Brazil on June 4 and Japan on June 5.<\/p>\n A varsity starter for four seasons, Ricardo plans to attend Louisiana Tech in the fall and major in speech pathology. The pitcher is a member of the National Honor Society, Z-Club, FCA, BETA and STUCO clubs, along with serving as the yearbook editor at Shreve. She helped get the Lady Gators to the second round of the playoffs as a freshman. One of her career highlights was pitching a perfect game and hitting a home run against Caddo Magnet earlier this season.<\/p>\n Ricardo is 11-7 on the mound with 174 strikeouts in 107.1 innings and has a 3.991 ERA. She\u2019s hitting .411 with seven doubles, 18 RBIs and a home run.<\/p>\n \u201cMikel-Ann has been one of the team\u2019s most consistent hitters this season,\u201d Shreve coach Mitch Fant said. \u201cShe has continued to work extremely hard on her pitching throughout the season. It has been a joy to watch her grow and mature as a team leader over the past four years. I am going to miss her dearly as she enters the final stretch of her career at Captain Shreve.\u201d<\/p>\n