BATON ROUGE — LSU’s Kristin Schmidt and Leslie Klein have been selected the Louisiana Softball Players of the Week, as announced by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association on Tuesday.
Klein, a freshman outfielder, went 7-for-14 for a .500 batting average on the week as the Tigers posted a 3-1 record, including a pair of wins over No. 15 South Carolina. The Sunrise, Fla., native produced a her SEC-best eighth home run, two doubles, four runs batted in and scored a run, for a team-best .857 slugging percentage.
In all four of LSU’s games, she recorded a hit and had multiple-hit games in three of the four. She now leads the Tigers with 14 multiple-hit games on the season. In LSU’s 4-0 win over South Carolina, she knocked in all four runs with her seventh multiple-RBI game of the year. For the season, Klein leads the Tigers in batting average, slugging percentage, on base percentage, hits, runs scored, RBIs, triples, home runs and total bases.
Schmidt notched a 0.58 earned run average in 24 innings pitched, while posting a pair of wins over No. 15 South Carolina and a win over Southern Miss. In addition, the senior from Houston, Texas, averaged 9.6 strikeouts per seven innings and allowed just eight hits in 80 opponents at bats.
In the Tigers’ third game against the Gamecocks, she faced the minimum, allowing just one second-inning hit before retiring the final 18 outs of the game. In the first meeting with South Carolina, she struck out a season-best 15, the seventh most in school history, while recording a 10-inning, two-hit shutout.
The only runs Schmidt allowed on the week were in relief of the second game against the Gamecocks. She allowed a two-run home run that proved to be the game-winner for South Carolina in nine innings.
Klein becomes the third LSU player to be named the Louisiana Hitter of the Week. Tigers Stephanie Hill and Leigh Ann Danos earned both previous Louisiana Hitter of the Week honors in 2004. Schmidt is the first LSU pitcher to be recognized by the LSWA this year.