Baseball | March 5, 2018

PHILADELPHIA – For the third consecutive week, the Philadelphia Big 5 Player of the Week comes from the La Salle University baseball team, as senior Brian Dudeck received the honor on Monday. He was also tabbed Hitter of the Week by the Philadelphia Baseball Review.

Dudeck was an extra-base hit machine over the Explorers' four games this past week, putting forth a 1.000 slugging percentage with two doubles, a triple and a home run. He batted .500 over the four road games with seven RBI, three runs, two walks, a stolen base and a .556 on-base percentage.

In Tuesday's 12-1 win at Maryland Eastern Shore, Dudeck was just a homer shy of hitting for the cycle, going 3-for-4 with an RBI triple while scoring the go-ahead run in the fifth inning. The outfielder then posted career highs across the board at Kansas State on Saturday, finishing 3-for-4 with five RBI, two runs, a double and a walk along with his first career long ball – a three-run shot in first inning that gave La Salle a 3-0 lead.

A transfer from VMI, Dudeck sat out the 2017 season and has been a key cog in the Explorers' lineup through the first 11 games of 2018. He's hitting .366 this season and has started in all 11 contests. The Princeton, N.J., native is among the top 12 in the Atlantic 10 Conference in batting average, runs (9), hits (15), RBI (8), on-base percentage (.471) and slugging percentage (.537).

Dudeck joins junior Brett Simon (Feb. 19) and senior Chase Arnold (Feb. 26) as La Salle's Big 5 weekly award winners, with the Explorers taking top player honors in each of the first three weeks of the season.

La Salle will head to Missouri next for a three-game series with the Tigers starting on Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET.