By Mike Lehman, TTU Sports Information
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Tennessee Tech first baseman John Dyer was recognized for his incredible play over the weekend by multiple entities, picking up Collegiate Baseball National Player of the Week powered by Diamond Sports and Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Week honors Monday afternoon.
On an absolute tear seldom seen on a diamond, Dyer continued his red-hot play with a monster weekend at Eastern Illinois, batting .462 with a whopping five home runs and nine RBI in the three-game series. The senior tallied six total hits, scored five runs, and slugged an incredible 1.615 for the week, leading to the pair of honors.
The first baseman opened the weekend with a pair of solo blasts in a Tech win and followed it up with another long ball in the middle contest. He wrapped things up by clobbering two more jacks to the tune of six RBI in the finale.
Over the weekend, Dyer became just the 29th member of the OVC's 40-home run club and the sixth Golden Eagle to reach the mark. The Mt. Juliet native also tied a program record with his fifth-straight contest clearing the fences, a mark set by Matt Ballard back in 1992 and matched by Zach Stephens in 2012.
Dyer's second round-tripper of the finale, his 17th long ball of the year and 41st of his career, gave the slugger eight in his last nine games, a stretch bested only once in program history by Ryan Guardino with 10 dingers in seven games last season. The Tech leader has been on a torrid pace the past month plus, piling up a whopping 16 round-trippers in the team's last 22 games and compiling a .413 average, .465 on-base percentage, 1.000 slugging percentage, 25 runs scored, 31 RBI, and six doubles.
The Golden Eagles will head back to Cookeville for another three-game, OVC set, playing host to SIUE starting Friday at 6:00 p.m. CT at Quillen Field and Bush Stadium at the Averitt Express Baseball Complex.
Photo by Jim Dillon
