Long Beach State University Athletics
Andrews, Jones Sweep Big West Weekly Honors
5/7/2018 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
LONG BEACH, Calif. - For the second time this season, it was a Dirtbags sweep of the Big West weekly baseball awards. After Long Beach State swept a three-game series at UC Riverside last weekend, junior Clayton Andrews was named Big West Pitcher of the Week and freshman Leonard Jones picked up Player of the Week honors.
For Andrews, it's his third weekly award of the season and second Pitcher of the Week nod. The junior from Rohnert Park, Calif. also won Pitcher of the Week honors back on Apr. 9 and was the Player of the Week on Mar. 26. Andrews is the only player in conference history to win both awards during the same season. For the freshman Jones, this is the first weekly honor of his Dirtbags career.
Andrews earned the award with a tremendous outing against the Highlanders on Saturday, striking out a career-best 13 batters in the win. He pitched eight full innings, allowing just one run on a solo homer. He scattered five hits in the game while not walking a batter, and lowered his team-leading ERA to 2.58 on the season. He also had four hits and drew a walk offensively, meaning he was on base as many times as the Highlanders were during his eight innings on the mound.
Andrews now has 92 strikeouts in just 76.2 innings pitched, and has had four games with double-digit strikeouts this season. During Big West competition, Andrews has recorded a conference-leading 45 strikeouts in his five starts, which is 12 more than any other pitcher.
The impressive hot streak continues for Jones, who has been unstoppable over the past two weeks. Over his last seven games, the freshman from Chula Vista, Calif. has six multi-hit games, going 15-for-30 at the plate with a home run, four doubles, five runs scored, and 10 RBIs in that span. During the UC Riverside series, Jones had multiple RBIs in all three games, finishing with eight on the weekend. In the first inning of Sunday's win, he launched his first career home run to give the Dirtbags an early 3-0 lead. He is now the team's leading hitter with a .323 batting average on the season.
Long Beach State has now claimed seven weekly honors this season, the most of any Big West school. Previous weekly honorees include Zak Baayoun (twice) and Tyler Radcliffe, who each earned Pitcher of the Week recognition.
LBSU is back in action on Tuesday night at No. 11 UCLA, with first pitch set for 6 p.m. on Pac-12 Network.
