BATON ROUGE — Quarterback JaMarcus Russell and volleyball’s Daniela Romero were named the LSU Male and Female Athletes of the Week Tuesday following a vote by a local media panel.
Russell helped the Tigers to their eighth win of the season, and their fourth straight, by completing 18-of-21 passes for 207 yards and a career-high tying three touchdowns in LSU’s 28-14 win over Alabama last Saturday. Russell added 36 yards on the ground as he accounted for 243 of the Tigers’ 418 yards of total offense.
With the performance, the junior from Mobile, Ala., jumped up to third on LSU’s all-time single season touchdown lists with 21. His passing yards (2,364) and completions (177) totals for the 2006 season also rank sixth and eighth, respectively, at LSU with three games still to go.
Romero, a setter on the Tigers’ squad, led LSU to victories over Arkansas and Alabama last week as the Tigers’ clinched their first outright SEC Western Division championship in school history.
A senior from Arlington, Texas, Romero guided the Tigers to a .276 hitting percentage for the week. Against Arkansas she recorded a career-high seven kills and a .500 hitting percentage, while she posted her 13th double-double, with 14 digs and 44 assists, against Alabama.
In addition, Romero cracked LSU’s all-time top-10 for single season assists and is now just 23 digs away from reaching 1,000 for her career.