BATON ROUGE — LSU seniors Marcus Thornton and Ashleigh Clare-Kearney were named LSU Male and Female Student-Athletes of the Week this week.
Thornton was named SEC Player of the Week after posting back-to-back 30-point games last week against Mississippi State and 15th-ranked Xavier.
In the 81-57 win over the Bulldogs, Thornton led the Tigers with 31 points, including a 17-point outburst in a span of 3:40 in the second half that featured three consecutive three-pointers followed by a steal and a layup.
Thornton led the way again with 30 points as the Tigers fell short at home to Xavier, 80-70. The Baton Rouge native was the first Tiger to post back-to-back 30-point games since Ronnie Henderson did it three-straight games in 1995.
Clare-Kearney, a senior gymnast from Manchester, Conn., helped lead the 10th-ranked Tigers to a win at Kentucky by posting a season-high score on the bars, beam, floor and in the all-around and winning four event titles. Clare-Kearney scored a 9.925 on bars, a 9.875 on beam, a 9.90 on floor and a 39.600 in the all-around.
She won event titles on the vault, bars, floor and all-around, pushing her career total to 94. The Tigers also posted a season high score of 196.575, improving their record to 6-1 this season.
Gymnastics travels to Auburn, Ala. for a dual meet against Auburn on Friday at 7 p.m. Men’s basketball, fresh off a 79-73 road win at Tennessee, hosts Arkansas on Saturday at 4 p.m. as part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of LSU basketball.