UC Irvine's Wes Etheridge and UC Riverside's Jamie Pedroza led the Anteaters and Highlanders to sweeps over their opponents to earn Big West Pitcher/Player of the Week honors, for the week ending March 18.

In Saturday’s 8-1 win over New Mexico, Etheridge struck out a career-high eight batters and limited the Lobos to one run to improve to a Big West-leading 7-0 record. The Huntington Beach, Calif., native hurled eight innings for the second consecutive week and scattered just six hits as UCI claimed the series win. The Lobos did not reach second base against Etheridge until the fifth inning. He retired seven straight before handing the ball off to the UCI bullpen. The right-hander lowered his ERA to 1.44 and he leads the team with 39 strikeouts in 50 innings. Etheridge has yielded eight earned runs on 34 hits and is holding opposing batters to a .198 average.

Highlander shortstop Pedroza was at the forefront of the offensive explosion, hitting .555 with 11 RBI and three home runs while slugging 1.167. On Friday, Pedroza went 3-for-4 with two doubles, a home run and tied his career and season-high with five RBI in UC Riverside’s 11-8 win over Santa Clara. He followed that with a 4-for-5 effort, his second career four-hit game, and another home run with three RBI on Saturday. The Covina, Calif., native closed out the weekend by homering in his third straight game and went 3-for-5 for his team-leading 13th multi-hit and seventh multi-RBI game. He is tied for the team-high with a new career-high six home runs and leads UCR with 29 RBI, two off his career-high.