COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – San Diego State softball’s Quinn Waiki garnered Mountain West Freshman of the Week accolades, the league announced Monday. Waiki earned the honor for her play in the team’s series win at Boise State over the weekend including a two-home run game in Friday night’s win.
San Diego State (29-15, 13-6) fell 9-0 in six innings on Thursday night but bounced back with a 10-8 win on Friday night before a 10-2 victory in six innings on Saturday. On Friday, SDSU scored in the first inning before taking an 8-0 lead after scoring seven times in the third inning including home runs by Jazmin Williams and Waiki. After Boise State went on a 7-0 scoring run to pull within one after five innings, Waiki homered for the second time of the night to put the Aztecs up 10-7. The Broncos got one run back on a solo homer in the bottom of the seventh inning, but Cece Cellura got a double play to end the game with a 10-8 win for SDSU. On Saturday, Julie Holcomb, Williams and Jade Ignacio each laced RBI singles in the first inning before the Aztecs scored a run in both the second and third innings. The Aztecs exploded for five runs in the top of the sixth inning on a Gabriella Terrones pinch-hit grand slam and a Williams solo homer while Grace Uribe pitched a gem, allowing two runs on two hits across six innings as SDSU took the series with the 10-2 triumph.
Waiki started all three games at shortstop, where she has played all season. On the week, Waiki hit .375 with a .444 on-base percentage, 1.125 slugging percentage and a 1.569 OPS. To reach those numbers, she went 3-for-8 with four RBIs, four runs scored, and two home runs while playing her usual stellar defense with five putouts and eight assists. In Friday night’s contest, Waiki launched two-run homers in both the third and sixth innings to become the first Aztec this season with a multi-homer game. On Saturday, she singled in the second inning and scored all the way from second base on a wild pitch before being hit by a pitch and scoring again in the sixth inning.
The Hilo, Hawai’i native is the first Aztec to win Mountain West Freshman of the Week since Cellura did so twice last season and first Aztec position player to bring home the award since Bella Espinoza won it four times and AJ Murphy did it twice during the 2022 campaign. SDSU’s eight Mountain West weekly awards this year are one shy of Nevada’s league-leading nine while Boise State (6), New Mexico (5), Fresno State (2), Utah State (2) and Colorado State (1) account for the other weekly awards this season.
This weekend, San Diego State will play a two-game series against current No. 12/13-ranked Arizona at SDSU Softball Stadium. The teams are scheduled to face off at 6 p.m. on Friday night and 12 p.m. on Saturday. Both games will be broadcast on the Mountain West Network.