Long Beach State University Athletics
Liebel Races His Way to Award
5/12/2008 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 12, 2008
IRVINE--Long Beach State right hander Andrew Liebel (Pomona) was named the Big West's Pitcher of the Week for the second time following a five-hit shutout over UC Santa Barbara last week. The right hander enters his start on Friday in San Luis Obispo with a league-best 1.69 ERA.
Taking a mere two hours and 12 minutes, Liebel won his fourth consecutive decision to move to 7-2 on the season, pitching his second consecutive shutout. He struck out six and walked two as he now has 20.1 consecutive scoreless innings. Liebel pitched to just three over the minimum, allowing just five hits against the conference's second-best hitting team.
This is Liebel's second award of the season, as he received his first honor after shutting down Rice to open the season.
Long Beach State (30-18, 11-7 Big West) will play at San Diego State on Tuesday at 6 p.m., employing the entire staff for Tuesday's contest to start their final road series of the year. San Diego State has not announced their starter.
The Aztecs (30-22) are 19-13 at Tony Gwynn Stadium this season and just finished a eight-game road trip at Arizona, Air Force and BYU in which they won five of seven. SS Troy Hanzawa leads the club with a .380 average and 46 RBIs, while former Dirtbag and utility player Brandon Decker is batting .348. 3B Nick Romero leads the club with 11 home runs and 59 RBIs. SDSU bats .298 as a team, but has a 5.03 team ERA, led by All-America candidate Stephen Strasberg who is 8-1 with a 1.28 ERA as a weekend starter.
The Aztecs, at 16-8 in the Mountain West, have just the Dirtbags and CS Fullerton to close out their regular season. SDSU sits a game and a half back of TCU and New Mexico in the standings, with one conference weekend remaining.
The Dirtbags continue on the road this weekend for a three-game series, at Cal Poly (23-26, 7-11 Big West). The Mustangs host Pepperdine on Tuesday. LBSU returns home for their final four beginning on Monday, May 19 against two-time defending NCAA Champion Oregon State.
The Beach enters the final two weekends of the regular season 2.5 games behind front-runner CS Fullerton (15-6) in the Big West standings. LBSU hosts CS Fullerton on the final weekend of the regular season, while the Titans play SDSU this weekend prior to playing the Dirtbags. UC Riverside, who is 12-6 and a game and a half back, play at UCSB and host Cal Poly to end the season. UC Irvine, UCSB and UC Davis are all 10-8 heading into the final two weekends, three and a half games back.
Shane Peterson continues to lead the team in hitting, at .383 with seven home runs and 46 RBIs. Peterson has the highest average since Toby Sanchez and Chuck Lopez each hit over .400 in 1997 and 1998. Jason Corder, with 20 home runs in his career and 13 this season, also leads the club in RBIs with 49. Peterson ranks third in the league in hitting and on-base percentage, Corder leads the Big West in slugging and home runs. Both rank in the top-10 in RBIs.
