COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- San Diego State softball's Mac Barbara (Long Beach, Calif.) has been named the Mountain West Player of the Week, the league announced Monday. It is the fourth conference weekly award of her career and first of the season for the junior first baseman.
Barbara hit .545 on the weekend while slugging 1.273 with a 1.856 OPS. She scored four runs while driving in five for the Aztecs, who won the Mountain West regular season title with Saturday's victory over UNLV.
In Friday's contest, Barbara went 3-4 at the dish including a double to right-center in the third inning. She also played a role in SDSU's seventh-inning rally, with an RBI single through the left side before coming around to score on a wild pitch.
It was in Saturday's season finale where Barbara really shined. In the game to clinch the championship, she got the Aztecs on the board in the first by doubling on the second pitch of the game and scoring on a pair of groundouts. In the second inning, Barbara hit a two-run homer to right-center that left the stadium and nearly made it to the Aztecs' team bus on the other side of a parking lot. She hit one out to right-center again for another two-run home run as part of the team's ten-run fourth inning, although the second was not hit as far as her first, as SDSU went on to win 13-4 in five innings to clinch the conference championship.
Top-seeded SDSU will open the Mountain West Tournament at 6:30 p.m. MT/5:30 p.m. PT on Thursday, May 9, in Boise, Idaho. The Aztecs will face the winner of fourth-seeded Fresno State and fifth-seeded host Boise State.