Irvine, CA—The Big West announced today that Chelsea Ponce is the conference Softball Pitcher of the Week for games played from May 4-10. This is Ponce's fifth pitcher of the week honor this season.

View all-time UC Riverside Softball Player and Pitcher of the Week honorees.

The Norwalk, California native helped the Highlanders to their second conference series sweep this season as they took down the Cal Poly Mustangs over the weekend going 3-0 with a 0.86 ERA in the circle while holding the Mustangs lineup to a collective .180 batting average. 

Ponce threw 16.1 innings through three outings, allowing just three runs (two earned), 11 hits, walking four and striking out five. She did not allow an earned run over the final 11.1 innings of work.

The redshirt junior finished out the season at the top of the Big West and sixth nationally with 30 wins. She also completed the campaign atop the conference in ERA (1.34) and third in strikeouts (188).

Ponce helped the Highlanders record two sweeps of conference opponents - the other was UC Davis - in the same season for the first time in program history. In addition, she played a monstrous role in UCR's Division I program-best 39-17 record, and its first conference winning record (11-10) since trasitioning to Division I 15 years ago.