Gardiner Named SEC Softball Player of the Week
Monday, March 31, 2008 | Softball
University of Florida junior first baseman Ali Gardiner (Waccabuc, N.Y.) has been named the Southeastern Conference Player of the Week the league announced Monday afternoon. Gardiner led the Gator offense as the team went 5-0 on the week, including series sweeps over conference foes South Carolina and No. 8 LSU.
Gardiner was the Gators leading hitter over its five games against SEC opponents this week. She hit .643 for the week, including a 1.143 slugging percentage and a .706 on base percentage. She also led the team in hits (9), runs (5), home runs (2) and shared the lead in RBI (4) on the week. She recorded the game-winning hit and game-winning run with her walk-off homer in the second game against South Carolina. She recorded the game-winning hit in the game one win over LSU with a double in the third inning. She also had the game-winning hit in the final game of the LSU series with a base hit in the first. She had a perfect batting average in both the first and third games against No. 8 LSU. Gardiner's two home runs this week doubled her home run total for the season. In addition to her offensive numbers, Florida's first baseman was perfect in the field with 34 putouts and one assist.
This is the first conference player of the week honor for Gardiner. It the fifth for the Gators this season as junior Stacey Nelson (Los Alamitos, Calif.) was named pitcher of the week on Feb. 18 and 25, senior Mary Ratliff (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) was named player of the week on March 3 and freshman Aja Paculba (Wildomar, Calif.) was named freshman of the week on March 17.
The No. 3/4 Gators (40-2, 12-1 SEC) wrap up an 11-game home stand on Wednesday as they face instate rival USF in a doubleheader beginning at 4 p.m. Florida will then travel to Starkville, Miss. to continue SEC play with a three-game series The second game of Saturday's doubleheader will air live on Cox Sports TV at 4:30 p.m. ET. Contact your local cable or satellite provider for specific channel listings.
