BATON ROUGE, La. — LSU junior catcher Brad Cresse has earned honors as the Southeastern Conference’s player of the week, the league office announced Monday afternoon.
It marks the first time a Tiger player has been honored this year, and the first time Cresse has been honored by the conference. Cresse was named a National Player of the Week twice in 1998 by Collegiate Baseball newspaper following the Tigers’ three-game sweeps of Georgia and Kentucky.
Cresse, a native of Seal Beach, Calif., batted .500 (5-for-10) in the Tigers’ three-game sweep of Auburn last weekend. His best game was in LSU’s 11-2 triumph in game three, in which he hit two home runs and drove in five runs. It was his first two-home run game of the season, and his first since last year’s College World Series opener against USC.
Cresse also recorded his first career stolen base in Friday’s 9-5 win, a game in which he went 2-for-4 and contributed a sacrifice fly.
The SEC’s leader in home runs (29) and RBIs (90) in 1998, Cresse is batting .277 this season with eight home runs and 29 RBIs. He was plagued early in the season by a hand injury that forced him out of the LSU lineup for two weeks.
LSU (32-17, 14-10 SEC), which is ranked 19th in both the Collegiate Baseball and Baseball America polls this week, returns to action Friday night when they open a three-game SEC series with Georgia at 7 p.m. ET in Athens.