Philadelphia, PA – A historical performance on Wednesday set the tone and
Carter Groen never looked back on the way to an Atlantic 10 Player of the Week award, announced Tuesday by the conference.
Groen drove in 14 RBI during five games played last week – eight of them, which matched a single-game school record, came Wednesday against Lafayette – and hit three home runs, four extra base hits, and moved into 13
th-place nationally in the RBI category (32).
Groen is the second Explorer to win A-10 Player of the Week through the first five weeks of the season.
Alec Welshans won it on opening week.
The record-matching game on Wednesday saw Groen reach the mark by the fourth inning. The redshirt-sophomore recorded an RBI single in the first inning, crushed a grand slam in the second, and moved into a three-way tie for the record with a three-run double in the fourth to help lift the Explorers to a 16-11 victory over Lafayette.
The Missouri City, Texas, native kept the momentum rolling into the A-10 Conference opener series at VCU during the weekend. With the Explorers trailing, 3-0, and down to their final three outs in the ninth inning, Groen hit a game-tying three-run homer. Less than 24 hours later, he hit a nearly identical homer to the same spot over the left field wall at The Diamond, this one a two-run shot in the third inning, which at the time gave La Salle a 4-1 lead.
Groen has hovered around the nations' leaders in RBI all season. At one point a week into the season, he was briefly the national leader. His 14-RBI week now puts him in a tie for 13
th place among a much larger sample size. Entering play this week, the leading mark is 45, though Groen sits just five off the third-place tally of 37.
As Groen continues to climb the RBI leaderboard, he and the Explorers will get to see Lafayette again at Hank DeVincent Field this week, with Wednesday's originally scheduled road game being moved to home at 3:30 pm. The Explorers then host Davidson for three this weekend to commence the A-10 home schedule.
