BATON ROUGE — For the first time in the 2003 season, an LSU baseball player has earned honors from the Southeastern Conference office, as junior shortstop Aaron Hill was named the Position Player of the Week by the league office in Birmingham.
Hill, a native of Visalia, Calif., batted .579 (11-for-19) in the Tigers’ four games last week, scoring seven runs, driving in six runs and posting a 1.062 slugging percentage. Hill was 3-for-3 with a home run and a game-winning two-run double on Wednesday at Northwestern State, then went 7-for-13 (.538) with a pair of three-hit games in the Tigers’ series with Ole Miss, scoring four runs in LSU’s 13-5 win on Sunday.
In his last 10 games, Hill is batting .450 (18-for-40), and on April 5 vs. South Carolina, he went 5-for-5 and hit for the cycle, tying a school record for hits and becoming the first LSU player to hit for the cycle in six years.
Hill, a member of the 2002 Untied States national team that won the silver medal at the World University games in Italy last August, has been the Tigers’ most consistent hitter this year, batting .385 and leading the SEC in on-base percentage (.512) and walks (29). Hill is also the Tigers’ leader in RBI (33), runs scored (36) and doubles (14), along with numerous other offensive categories.
In SEC games, Hill is batting .466 (27-for-58) with nine doubles and 15 RBI. He has also been LSU’s top clutch hitter, batting .425 with runners in scoring position and .444 with 12 RBI with two out.
LSU (24-11-1, 11-3-1 SEC) is now the overall leader in the SEC following its series win last weekend over Ole Miss, the Tigers’ ninth consecutive SEC series win and one shy of tying the school and SEC record of 10. LSU is ranked in the top 10 by both Collegiate Baseball (7th) and Baseball America (10th) in those publications’ weekly polls.
Hill is the fist LSU position player to be honored by the SEC office since Sean Barker was named Player of the Week following last year’s opening series against Birmingham-Southern. Two LSU pitchers, Bo Pettit (April 15) and Brian Wilson (April 29) also earned weekly honors in 2002.
The Tigers return to action on Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m. when they host in-state rival Tulane (26-11) before traveling to Vanderbilt for a three-game SEC series this weekend.