The Big West Conference took notice of Long Beach State Monday, naming sophomore Dirtbags Danny Espinosa and Bryan Shaw co-Players of the Week in baseball, and in basketball, Aaron Nixon was named co-Players of the Week for the fourth time this season. Cal Poly’s Dawin Whiten is who Nixon shared the award with.
Espinosa and Shaw helped LBSU win its weekend series over Texas, with the Dirtbags winning two of the three games at Blair Field.
Espinosa went 5-for-14 in the series, with two doubles and three RBI’s. Espinosa had the game-winning hit in the bottom of the ninth on Friday, and earlier in the week, Espinosa hit a three-run homerun against Pepperdine.
Shaw, the Dirtbag’s closer, pitched three innings on Saturday, striking out five and yielding only one hit as Shaw picked up his first win of the season.
On the hard court, Nixon hit the game-winning shot with 0.4 seconds left to beat host UC Santa Barbara on Saturday night.
Nixon also played an important role on Thursday, an 80-77 win over Cal Poly, with Nixon scoring a game-high 26 points.
The fourth Player of the Week award is the most of any Big West basketball player since the 2000-01 season. Pacific alumnus Michael Olowokandi is the only player to win the award five times in a season, which he did during the 1997-98 campaign.