UHV’s Garcia named RRAC Player of the Week

Cristian Garcia was a spark plug during a banner week for the UHV baseball team.

The graduate senior boasted a slash line of .692/.765/1.231 with four RBIs, two home runs and eight runs scored last week. The Houston native had a career day in a historic win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Feb. 26, going 5-for-5 with a home run and three runs scored. His five hits tied the program single-game hits record.

On Tuesday, the Red River Athletic Conference named Garcia its Player of the Week for the week of Feb. 24-March 2. He is the fifth Jaguar honored with weekly honors this year and joins Terry Burrel III as the only Jaguars to receive Player of the Week.

"It's awesome to get this award," Garcia said. "Being on a team like this, with this type of brotherhood and mentality, really makes it easy to play for one another."

Garcia has consistently proven himself to be one of the best hitters in the nation this season, hitting .532 this season with 20 RBIs, seven doubles and four home runs. His .532 average leads the RRAC and ranks sixth nationally.

The Western Kentucky transfer also leads the conference in OBP, getting on base at a .663 clip. He has reached base safely in each of the 21 games for UHV (19-2, 9-0) this season.

That has helped the Jaguars to one of the best starts in program history and they sit in first place in the RRAC Standings through the first three weeks of the conference schedule.

"I'm fired up for Cristian to be recognized," said head coach Jonathan Stavinoha. "He has stepped up time and time again for us, and in some pretty big spots, too. He's an extremely disciplined hitter. I can't wait to see how he keeps this going."

The Jaguars face off with NCAA Division I Prairie View A&M at 2 p.m. today at Prairie View A&M's Tankersley Field.