Minnesota senior center fielder Sam Steidl was named Big Ten player of the week Monday. It marks the second time this season and third time in his career that Steidl has claimed conference player of the week honors.

It is also the third time a Minnesota player has claimed the honors this season in the nine weeks it has been announced, which is the most by any team in the Big Ten.

Steidl led the Gophers to three wins in Indiana last weekend, batting .563 with six runs and six RBIs. He also had a .650 on-base percentage in the four-game conference series.

Steidl had two hits or more in each of the five games last week, tallying 11 overall.

Heading into this week, Steidl is fifth on the Minnesota career hit list with 267. He is also 33 hits away from becoming the second Gophers player to amass 300 hits in his career. Robb Quinlan is the only Minnesota player with 300 hits, tallying 345.

Steidl is also fifth on the career stolen base list with 54.

Steidl leads the Big Ten in batting average with .409 this season and is second in the conference in runs scored at 30. He is also third in stolen bases in the Big Ten with 11 on the season.

Spring volleyball action

Minnesota’s volleyball team went 1-1-2 in four matches in the UCSB spring tournament in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Saturday.

All four matches were two games to 30 points in round-robin play.

Minnesota defeated Texas A&M 2-0 (30-24, 30-22), split with Arizona 1-1 (28-30, 30-28), split with host UC Santa Barbara 1-1 (15-30, 30-28) and lost 2-0 (30-26, 30-27) to Hawaii.

Minnesota will play in two more tournaments this spring. The Gophers head to Lincoln, Neb., to play in Nebraska’s tournament Saturday and will return home to host a spring tournament at 6 p.m. Saturday. Admission to the home tournament is free to the public.