BATON ROUGE — LSU All-American Killian Roessner was named the Southeastern Conference Player of the Week, it was announced by the league office on Monday.
The Manasquan, N.J., native led the Tigers to a 5-0 record last week, including a sweep of the USF Under Armour Showcase and a share of the tournament title, while pushing LSU’s winning streak to 12 straight games. Hitting .500 on the week, Roessner was 8-for-16 at the plate with six RBIs, three doubles and two home runs for a 1.063 slugging percentage.
Against South Florida on Sunday, Roessner recorded a walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the eighth. With the game using the international tie-breaker rule in the eighth, the Tigers began the bottom half of the inning with Jazz Jackson on second. After Jackson moved to third on a single by Rachel Mitchell, Roessner came to the plate and came through for LSU. Roping a single to center field, Jackson easily scored to give the Tigers the 2-1 win.
It was, however, not Roessner’s only heroics of the week. In the bottom of the 11th inning last Tuesday, the senior catcher scored the game-winning run in a 7-6 victory over Troy. Leading off the inning with a double to right center, Roessner moved to third on an infield single by Quinlan Duhon. After an intentional walk to Erika Sluss loaded the bases, Roessner scored the game-winner on a walk-off single by Shannon Stein.
Earlier in that game against the Trojans, Roessner slammed her seventh home run of the year that put the Tigers ahead, 5-4, in the bottom of the fifth. Following her homer, she was intentionally walked twice, becoming just the eighth LSU player to be intentionally walked twice in a game, before coming through with her leadoff double in the 11th.
Against Oklahoma State on Friday, Roessner hit her team-leading eighth home run or the season. She has now recorded more home runs this season than in any previous season in her four-year career. With 28 RBIs, she has also recorded more runs batted in than in three of her previous four seasons.
With a hit in all five games on the week, Roessner extended her hitting streak to a team-best six games. She also recorded a pair of multiple-RBI games and knocked in at least one run in four of the five games. This season, she leads the team with 10 multiple-RBI games.
In the field, the 2007 Diamond Sports National Catcher of the Year threw out a pair of runners attempting to steal on her. This year, she has caught 10 of the 23 runners who attempted to steal on her, which is tied for the second most in the SEC this season, and now has 52 runners caught stealing in her career, almost 20 more than the next best previous Tiger.
LSU will return to conference play next week. The purple and gold will host Auburn in a three-game series at Tiger Park. Due to Easter Sunday, the series will be played on Friday and Saturday. The Tigers will square off on Friday with a doubleheader beginning at 5 p.m. before concluding the series with a single game on Saturday at 1 p.m.
All three games of the series will be broadcast on the LSU Sports Radio Network in Baton Rouge on The X ? 104.5/104.9 FM and in the Geaux Zone on LSUsports.net. In addition, the final game of the series will be televised on Cox Sports Television in Baton Rouge on cable channel 37.