April 19, 2010
PHILADELPHIA - La Salle University sophomore first baseman Jon Gyles has been named the Atlantic 10 Conference's Player of the Week for his effort this past week, which included driving in 11 runs, scoring five times and hitting for the cycle on Friday afternoon.
On Tuesday, Gyles was also named the Philadelphia Big 5 Player of the Week for the second time this season. It also marks the fourth time an Explorer earned the honor this season.
Gyles batted .615 in the three-game A-10 series against Temple, while posting a 1.154 slugging percentage and an on-base percentage of .706, and driving in 11 of La Salle's 23 runs in the series.
He became just the 14th player in NCAA Division I this season to hit for the cycle and the first league player since Charlotte's Ryan Rivers did it last year on April 11.
In that Friday contest, Gyles drove in seven runs, including the game winner with a two-out bases loaded single in the bottom of the 12th inning to give La Salle its fourth straight A-10 opening game win of 2010 in defeating the Owls, 11-10.
He was the catalyst for the Explorers come-back on Friday. After La Salle fell behind 5-0 after the top of the second, he hit a solo home run to get the offense going. His bases loaded triple in the bottom of the eighth gave the Explorers a 9-8 lead and his run put them up by two.
Gyles also drove in four runs in Sunday's 12-5 win, which included two in the first, accounting for the go-ahead run, and two in the second, pushing across the sixth run.
He raised his batting average 30 points (.319 to .349) in the three-game set, and is now averaging more than one RBI per game (35 in 33 games). He leads the A-10 in conference-only RBI with 16 and is tied for sixth overall with 35. He now has three games this season with at least four RBI, while the rest of the team has one.
The five hits on Friday were the most for an Explorer since May 15, 2007, when both John Rickards and TJ Chism had five at Saint Peter's. The seven RBI were the most since March 7, 1999, when Mike Fuchs had eight in a 19-13 win versus Monmouth on March 7, 1999.
Gyles picks up the 10th Player of the Week honor ever for La Salle in Baseball, the first since Chism last year (March 2), while the first one was picked up in 1996, when Brian Schaller earned it on April 1.
Six of La Salle's 10 have come in April, as Bob Ball (April 7, 1997), Fuchs (April 19, 1999), Mike Cavallaro (April 9, 2001), and Rich Prall (April 17, 2006) earned honors in the month.
Rickards (May 22, 2006 and February 19, 2007) and Prall (May 2, 2005) are the only two Explorers to earn multiple awards, while Gyles joins the pair and Fuchs as the only sophomores to be named Player of the Week.
This year marks only the third time in 15 years that La Salle had a Player of the Week and Pitcher of the Week honored in the same season by the A-10, as Kevin Christy picked up the pitcher award back on March 29.
The last time this happened was in 2007, when Rickards was joined by pitcher Gerard Breslin (April 16), and 10 years earlier Ball was joined by hurler John Polillo (March 31) for the Explorers first combo.
La Salle, 13-20 overall, currently sits third in the conference standings at 8-4 with a number of teams right behind them at 7-5. That includes the Explorers next three A-10 opponents, at Saint Joseph's (this weekend), at Fordham (next weekend), and home versus Saint Louis (May 7-9).
