BATON ROUGE — LSU junior shortstop Ryan Theriot has been honored as the Southeastern Conference’s Player of the Week, as announced by the league office in Birmingham on Monday morning.
Theriot, a Baton Rouge native and the Tigers’ 2001 team captain, had a sensational week, batting .667 (10-for-15) with a pair of RBIs and a .684 on-base percentage as LSU defeated the University of New Orleans on Tuesday and took two of three over the weekend at South Carolina.
In the three-game series at Columbia, Theriot went 8-for-12 with a pair of RBI. In his last two SEC series against Kentucky and South Carolina, Theriot is hitting .640 (16-for-25) with a .720 slugging percentage and a .655 on-base percentage.
Theriot, who is the Tigers’ leading hitter in SEC games at .386 (22-for-57) with 10 runs scored, has raised his season average over the last seven games by 73 points from .295 to .368, placing him second behind second baseman Mike Fontenot (.400) on the team in batting average.
Theriot is also a model of consistency, as he is the only LSU position player to start every game at the same position this season, and he has batted leadoff in every game. Theriot, who was the Tigers’ starting second baseman in 1999 before moving to shortstop for 2000, has started all 169 games of his LSU career.
Theriot is the third LSU player to be named SEC Player of the Week in 2001.
Designated hitter Zeph Zinsman was honored on February 26, while first baseman Bryan Moore won the award on March 5.
The Tigers (24-9-1, 10-5 SEC), who are in a first-place tie with Ole Miss in the overall SEC race, face Louisiana-Lafayette on Tuesday and Tulane on Wednesday at Zephyr Field in suburban New Orleans, with both games beginning at 7 p.m. The Tigers host Ole Miss starting Friday in a pivotal three-game conference series.