SAN DIEGO -- San Diego State ends its Mountain West regular season this weekend at conference-leading Boise State. The Aztecs (30-12, 14-5 MW) and Broncos (28-12, 13-2 MW) will play at 4 p.m. MT Friday, 4 p.m. MT Saturday and noon MT Sunday at Huber Field at Dona Larsen Park in Boise, Idaho.
SDSU (14-5), which has a league-record eight regular-season titles, enters the weekend one game behind BS (13-2) in the MW regular-season race, although the Broncos play at Fresno State next weekend while San Diego State plays a pair of non-conference games vs. LMU and No. 2/2 UCLA.
Boise State and the Aztecs are followed by Fresno State (9-7), San Jose State (9-10), Colorado State (7-8), Nevada (7-9), Utah State (6-10), UNLV (6-11) and New Mexico (4-13). The top-6 teams in the regular-season standings will qualify for the league's first conference tournament since 2006 with the top-2 teams automatically making the double-elimination bracket portion (two of the other four teams would have to win their first-round MW tournament game to advance to the double-elimination rounds). The winner of the MW tournament, set for May 11-13 at SDSU Softball Stadium, will earn the automatic bid into the NCAA tournament.
Bella Espinoza, Jillian Celis, Cali Decker and Mac Barbara have been the top hitters for SDSU, which owns a .305 average. Espinoza tops San Diego State in average (.379), runs (44) and stolen bases (26), while Celis is hitting .368 with team highs of 11 doubles and three triples, to go along with four home runs, 34 RBIs and 34 runs. Cali Decker is batting .358 with team highs of 23 walks and a .474 on-base percentage, while adding two home runs, 21 RBIs and 24 runs. Mac Barbara, the defending MW Player of the Year and two-time MW Player-of-the-Week winner this season, is hitting .356 with team bests of 10 home runs, 38 RBIs and a .678 slugging percentage, to go along with 23 runs, eight doubles and 21 walks.
Four SDSU pitchers have logged at least 40 innings this year, including Allie Light (9-5, 1.70 ERA, 6 SV, 90.2 IP), Sarah Lehman (10-3, 2.03 ERA, 3 SV, 72.1 IP), Dani Martinez (3-2, 3.05 ERA, 43.2 IP) and Dee Dee Hernandez (6-2, 3.36 ERA, 4 SV, 56.1 IP).
All three games this weekend will broadcast live on the Mountain West Network with live stats available on GoAztecs.com.
Aztecs Head to MW-Leading Boise State This Weekend
