March 28, 2006

Las Vegas - Missouri sophomore Jen Bruck (St. Peters, Mo.) was named Big 12 Player of the Week today as announced by the Conference office. The honor is the first of her career and marks Missouri's second nod of the season after fellow sophomore Amanda Renth received recognition for her work Feb. 14. Cat Osterman of Texas was named Big 12 Pitcher of the Week for the sixth of seven weekly honors and 22nd of her career.

Opening up the conference season on the road, Bruck helped the Tigers complete a two-game sweep of the No. 15 Sooners (8-6, 9-6), marking the first time since 1993 that Missouri has swept Oklahoma in either a home or away series and first time since 2004 that the Tigers have opened league action with back-to-back wins. The victories were also Missouri's first over a top-15 team this season and first over a ranked team since taking two games from No. 24 Georgia Tech, Feb. 11.

At the plate Bruck was 5-for-6 notching a second game, fourth inning leadoff home run over the wall in center field at the OU Softball Complex. Bruck scored four runs, tallied a 1.33 slugging percentage, took eight bases for an .875 on-base percentage and notched three RBI. On the season, Bruck leads her teammates in batting average (.400), slugging percentage (.733), on-base percentage (.500), runs scored (22), hits (30), home runs (6) and total bases (55). Crushing her sixth homer of the season, Bruck stands at sixth in the Missouri career home run record book after playing 82 games in a Missouri jersey.

From the circle Bruck held the Sooners to a .340 batting average, in addition to striking out eight batters in 11.2 innings. Bruck threw one complete game, the first in the two-game series, and started the second game before she was relieved by Megan Dennis. She later reentered the game to halt the OU offense for the win.

Bruck and her teammates will finish a three-game series against UNLV tonight at 7 p.m. (CST) at Jim Rogers Field in Las Vegas.