Klocke, Leigh earn OVC's weelkly baseball honors

Based on the weekend Southeast Missouri State had, it's not surprising the Redhawks swept the first weekly baseball awards handed out by the Ohio Valley Conference on Monday.

Junior catcher Jim Klocke is the OVC player of the week and senior left-hander James Leigh is the OVC pitcher of the week.

The honors came after Southeast opened its season by winning two of three games at then-16th-ranked Alabama.

It marked the first time in school history for Southeast to take a series from a top-20 Division I program.

"Both those guys are very deserving based on the performances they had," Southeast coach Mark Hogan said. "They were both tremendous."

Klocke had five hits and drove in a team-high six runs against Alabama.

In Sunday's rubber game of the series, an 8-4 Southeast win, Klocke had a two-run double and later delivered a two-run triple in the seventh inning that put the Redhawks ahead for good.

Klocke also moved to the mound for his first collegiate pitching appearance and nailed down Sunday's victory with two dominant final innings, striking out four and allowing one hit.

An all-OVC first-team selection last year, Klocke was listed on one preseason All-American squad entering his junior campaign.

"Jim was brilliant. He had an All-American type weekend," Hogan said.

Leigh pitched 7 1/3 innings of relief to close out Saturday's 8-3 win. He allowed six hits and one run while striking out seven and walking one. At one point, Leigh retired 16 of 20 batters.

"James was tremendous," Hogan said. "He really shut the door on a great hitting team."

-- Marty Mishow