Red Raider Profile: Stephen Hagen
October 20, 2011 | Baseball
Oct. 20, 2011
Red Raider Profile: Stephen Hagen | 
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The Texas Tech baseball team's fall season is underway and throughout the remainder of the semester, Texas Tech Athletics Communications will take an inside look into the Tech program with Red Raider Profiles on each player.
Stephen Hagen (INF - 6-2, 220 - R/R - RS Sr./2L - Lakebay, Wash./Peninsula/Eastern Oklahoma State)
Texas Tech's Stephen Hagen, the only player to be named the Big 12 Player of the Week twice during league play in 2011, is back for his senior year.
When you want to talk about power, look no further than Stephen Hagen. He began his career at Tech in 2010, a year after leading the junior-college ranks with 29 home runs at Eastern Oklahoma State. Hagen had a limited role with the Red Raiders in 2010 while still managing to hit .333 in 33 games (12 starts) with three home runs.
Then came last season, when Hagen assumed a huge role with the Red Raiders while starting all 58 games at first base and batting in the middle of the batting order throughout the season.
In 2011, Hagen batted .266 (58-for-218) with 38 runs, 12 doubles, six home runs, 42 RBI and posted 26 walks while only striking out 29 times.
Hagen had two memorable weekend series last year - while both ended with him being named the top offensive player in the Big 12 Conference. The first came at Baylor, where Texas Tech won the series winning games one and three while Hagen was nearly unstoppable at the plate in the final two games of the series.
Hagen went 5-for-6 with three runs, two doubles and a home run in game two while going 2-for-5 with a double and an RBI in the series finale.
He also earned Big 12 Player of the Week honors after hitting the game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth against Kansas in the first game of the series while the homestand ended with Tech picking up the three-game sweep over the Jayhawks.
Hagen also belted his first career grand slam against New Mexico (4/26) at home while becoming the first Tech player to hit a grand slam since 2009 and the first Red Raider to hit a grand slam at home since 2008.
"Stephen is a guy, who at times, can carry you," four-year head coach Dan Spencer said. "He carried us a few times last year, in the Kansas series and in the Baylor series where he was the Big 12 Player of the Week. Stephen is striving to be more consistent. He is a very good guy for us to have back. He can be a big piece of your offense, and he was last year for us."
In addition, Hagen is the only player on the Red Raiders roster who has been taken twice in the Major League Baseball First Year Players Draft. Hagen was selected in the 50th round out of high school in 2007 by the Oakland Athletics and then drafted in the 42nd round out of junior college in 2009 by the Seattle Mariners.
