Gavin Kilen homers his way to SEC Player of the Week honors

In what was an obvious choice due to his play in Houston, Tennessee second baseman Gavin Kilen brought home Southeastern Conference Player of the Week honors for the this week of the season.

It’s the first conference honor for Kilen, who transferred to Tennessee from Louisville over the summer. It’s also the first weekly honor for the Vols this season from the SEC.

The infielder just crushed it this week, recorded a .611 average at the plate after going 11-for-18 in the batter’s box with five homers, eight runs batted in and nine runs scored in one game against North Alabama in Tuesday’s midweek and Oklahoma State, Rice and Arizona in Houston.

Kilen was simply outstanding in the Lone Star State for the trio of games as the Vols won the Astros Foundation College Classic with a 3-0 record. During the showcase, the junior hit .600 with four homers and seven RBI and seven runs scored. He homered in back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday and finished Saturday’s contest a single shy of the cycle as part of a four-hit day.   

The recent power surge is a bit surprising considering Kilen had logged a combined nine home runs in his first two seasons at the college level.

“He’s doing well. We talked yesterday about how functional his swing is so shout out to Kilen’s cage,” Tony Vitello said Saturday. “I know he trained at a young age with his dad, and is passionate about hitting, just as well as he is fielding. We even talked about with some lineup changes. He could have moved over to third base, but he’s so versatile at every position defensively, we’d like to see him chest up on one ball there. But (if) you don’t get it done on defense, you come up to the plate and you knock it around.

“He’s done a good job of knocking it around for us the past two days.”

Tennessee is a perfect 11-0 on the young season and is back to Lindsey Nelson Stadium for a pair midweek contests against Radford and Xavier on Tuesday and Wednesday.