BATON ROUGE – LSU’s star striker Jorian Baucom has been honored as the Southeastern Conference Offensive Player of the Week for the second time this season after bagging a second-half brace to lead the Tigers to a thrilling 3-2 win in their regular-season finale at Kentucky on Thursday night and extend their SEC unbeaten streak to four games.
With Baucom spearheading the attack down the stretch, the Tigers (11-4-4, 5-4-2 SEC) locked up the No. 7 seed in the SEC Tournament where they will face No. 10 seed Kentucky again in a rematch in the first round on Monday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. CT. The match will be broadcast live on the SEC Network.
Baucom was honored Friday as the SEC Co-Offensive Player of the Week with Vanderbilt’s Lydia Simmons after winning the award for the first time back on Sept. 14 during the non-conference season.
It is also the fourth time this season in which an LSU Tiger has picked up SEC Player of the Week honors as senior midfielder Natalia Gomez-Junco and senior goalkeeper Catalina Rubiano have also been picked this year as the SEC’s Defensive Player of the Week with Gomez-Junco picking up the award on Sept. 21 and Rubiano claiming the honor on Oct. 19 during the league season.
With the Tigers needing a win or a draw at Kentucky to mathematically clinch a return trip to the SEC Tournament, Baucom scored two second-half goals in the 64th and 70th minutes to lead the team to a 3-2 in what was a thrilling end to the regular season. Baucom twice doubled LSU’s lead with her team-leading 14th and 15th goals of the season while making it 2-0 in the 64th minute and 3-1 in the 70th minute in the victory.
Her strike with 20 minutes to play proved to be the game-winner on the night as she netted her fifth game-winning goal of the season to push LSU’s unbeaten streak in SEC play to four-straight matches to wrap up the regular season. The Tigers locked up the No. 7 seed in the SEC Tournament while ending the season with three wins and a draw in their last four games, picking up 10 points to move from 11th place and up into seventh place in the final SEC standings during that span. They finished with a 5-4-2 mark and 17 points in league play in 2015.
Baucom’s efforts also lifted the Tigers to just their second win in program history in Lexington as they snapped a three-game winning streak in the series by the Wildcats with Thursday’s 3-2 win away from home.