Juniors Mikey Duarte of UC Irvine and Thomas Eshelman of Cal State Fullerton earned the conference’s baseball weekly awards after helping their teams to crucial series victories.
Duarte Records Four Straight Multi-Hit Games
UC Irvine junior Mikey Duarte (Redondo Beach, Calif./St. John Bosco HS) hit .563 with four multi-hit games as he notched Big West Baseball Field Player of the Week accolades.
Duarte tallied nine hits in 16 at-bats, including a three-hit performance in a 8-5 victory over No. 15 USC. He reached base safely in all four plate appearances and added a pair of RbI against the Trojans.
Entering the week in a three-way tie for first place, the Anteaters ended their series against Cal Poly co-leading the Big West after taking two of three games from the Mustangs. Duarte sparked the offense from the top of the lineup, producing three straight two-hit games. He knocked in the game-winning run Sunday with an RBI triple and added a two-run double to give UCI a 6-1 lead.
Duarte, who had a .588 on base percentage and .750 slugging percentage for the week, retook the team lead in average. He is now hitting .347.
Others nominated: David Olmedo-Barrera (Cal State Fullerton); Chester Pak (CSUN); Nick Lynch (UC Davis); Jacob Sheldon-Collins (Hawai‘i)
Eshelman Shuts Down High Powered UC Santa Barbara Offense
Cal State Fullerton junior Thomas Eshelman (Carlsbad, Calif./Carlsbad HS) mowed down a potent UC Santa Barbara lineup in garnering his second Big West Baseball Pitcher of the Week honor this season.
The Friday night ace tossed eight scoreless innings of three-hit ball in a 3-0 victory over the 11th-ranked Gauchos. He walked one batter, his first free pass during conference play, and struck out nine.
Eshelman sat down the last 10 Gauchos he faced. The walk he allowed was just his sixth of the season.
For the season, Eshelman leads the Big West with 95 strikeouts and ranks third with a 1.78 earned run average.
Others nominated: Conner O’Neil (CSUN); Raul Jacobson (UC Davis); Sam Moore (UC Irvine); Domenic Mazza (UC Santa Barbara); Quintin Torres-Costa (Hawai‘i)