BATON ROUGE — LSU’s Malorie Rutledge has certainly established herself as one of the more feared attacking players in the country this season, and the junior midfielder has been honored for her performance this weekend by being named the SEC Offensive Player of the Week.
This marks the first time in her career that Rutledge has received the highest weekly award given out by the SEC as the league office announced this week’s winners on Monday.
Rutledge scored the game-winning goal in both of LSU’s conference wins over the weekend as it defeated Auburn in overtime by the score of 2-1 on Friday night and Alabama by a dominating 7-0 margin on Sunday afternoon at the LSU Soccer Complex.
After picking up two wins on the weekend, LSU (10-2, 4-2 SEC) has ascended to the top spot of the SEC West with 12 points in league play, while Auburn is alone in second place with 10 points and both Ole Miss and Alabama trail the Tigers by three points in a tie for third at nine points.
Rutledge netted the game-winner just 24 seconds into the overtime period to lead the Tigers to the win over Auburn in a key SEC Western Division showdown. She then scored her first career hat trick with three goals against the Crimson Tide on Sunday that included the game-winner just five minutes following the opening kickoff.
The Sharpsburg, Ga., native has now scored the game-winning goal for LSU in three straight SEC matches as she also tallied the winning goal in the Tigers’ 2-1 win over Georgia on Oct. 5.
If her three goals against the Crimson Tide were not enough, Rutledge tied her own single-season assist record at LSU with her 12th on the year when she connected with junior midfielder Michelle Makasini in the 67th minute to give LSU a 6-0 lead late in the contest.
She becomes the first LSU soccer player to score seven points in a match in five years as former Tiger Rachel Cohen was the last to do so with three goals and one assist against Southern back on Nov. 2, 2003. With her effort, the Tigers now control their own destiny in the SEC West with five games remaining in the regular season as they are two points clear of Auburn.
The Hermann Trophy candidate is now the SEC’s leading scorer this season with seven goals and 12 assists for a career-high 26 points, while she also boasts a league-leading six goals and five assists for 17 points in conference action.