SAN DIEGO – The San Diego State baseball program collected two Mountain West honors on Monday, as Poncho Ruiz was named MW Player of the Week, while Drew Giannini was tabbed the league's Freshman of the Week. The announcement was made at the conference office in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
With their awards, Ruiz and Giannini garnered the first MW weekly accolades of their respective careers after the two players helped the Aztecs compile a 3-1 record during four games played from Feb. 27-March 5, including a Mountain West series victory at UNLV.
A 6-2 catcher, Ruiz led the Scarlet and Black in batting average (.474), hits (9), RBIs (9) and runs scored (9) for the week while sharing the top spot in total bases (13). The SDSU junior had two or more hits in all four games and had multiple RBIs in three contests.
In addition, Ruiz batted .545 (6-11) with runners in scoring position and advanced nine runners in 12 chances for 75 percent success rate.
Ruiz began the week with a 2-for-4 effort in a 3-2 triumph over Hawai'i on Feb. 27 in the final game of the Tony Gwynn Legacy. The Tijuana, Mexico, native put the Aztecs on the board with an RBI single in the third inning vs. the Rainbow Warriors and later scored the eventual winning run in the eighth following another single.
In the opener of a three-game set at UNLV on March 3, Ruiz went 2-for-5 with a pair of RBIs in SDSU's 8-5 victory. He contributed a RBI single in a three-run first-inning outburst before adding another run-scoring hit in the eighth to give the Aztecs an 8-4 advantage at the time.
In SDSU's 28-8 rout the following day, Ruiz scored a career-high five runs, which is tied for the eighth-most school history. He finished with a 3-for-6 performance in that contest with three RBIs, helping the Aztecs to its highest run (28) and hit (25) totals since April 22, 2007 in a 31-0 home whitewash of Air Force.
Ruiz ended the weekend with a 2-for-4 effort in the finale, matching his season-high with an additional trio of RBIs, which occurred on one swing of the bat—a three-run blast that cut UNLV's lead to 7-6 in the fifth inning—though the Scarlet and Black ultimately dropped a 9-8 nail-biter.
Along with his weekly honor, Ruiz received additional acclaim when he was named to the initial watch list for the 2023 Buster Posey National Collegiate Catcher of the Year Award by the Wichita (Kan.) Sports Commission on March 3.
Giannini, meanwhile, played in the first two games of the weekend series at UNLV, batting .429 with three hits, two RBIs and a pair of runs scored while compiling an .857 slugging percentage. The Aztec third baseman received his fourth start of the year in the series opener, ripping a two-out RBI single in the top of the first, as the Scarlet and Black held on for an 8-5 triumph.
Giannini returned the next day with his first career home run, a pinch-hit solo blast in the fifth inning of SDSU's 28-8 romp, helping the Aztecs record their highest run-total in a single game since April, 22, 2007 vs. Air Force. The Tracy, California, product remained in the game at third base, scoring another marker after a one-out eighth inning single, which gave him career-highs of two hits and two runs for the contest.
San Diego State returns to the diamond on Tuesday, March 7 when it travels up the freeway to battle UC Riverside in a non-conference game, starting at 6 p.m. PT.