Brent Rooker Named SEC Male Athlete of the Year

(Photo Courtesy: MSU Athletics)

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI/MSU Athletics) – One week after becoming just the second player ever to claim the Southeastern Conference triple crown, Brent Rooker has been named the 2017-18 Roy F. Kramer Male Athlete of the Year winner by Southeastern Conference, selected by a vote of the league’s athletics directors.

Rooker joins Will Clark (1985) and LaToya Thomas (2003) as the only Bulldogs to claim the honor.

The Germantown, Tennessee native was also named National Player of the Year by Collegiate Baseball and became MSU’s first-ever SEC Player of the Year, in addition to First Team All-America honors from five publications.

A first round pick by the Minnesota Twins in the 2017 MLB Draft, Rooker also won the Ferriss Trophy (best amateur baseball player in the state of Mississippi), was named First Team All-SEC and was also a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award and Dick Howser Trophy.

Rooker finished his stellar season with a .387 batting average and a school record 30 doubles. His 96 hits was eighth in program history for hits in a single season, while his 23 home runs was fifth in the MSU record books. On the year, Rooker became the first player in SEC history to record 20 home runs, 30 doubles and 75 RBIs in a single season and the first Division I player to accomplish the feat since Clemson’s Khali Green in 2002.

Categories: College Sports, Local Sports

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