UC Irvine’s Pajer honored

UC Irvine women’s swimming and diving coach Brian Pajer, who guided

the program to its first Big West Conference championship, was named

Big West Coach of the Year for the second time in three seasons.

The Anteaters amassed 821 points at the conference championships

in Long Beach, more than 100 better than runner-up University of the

Pacific.

UCI’s Schroer lauded

* BASEBALL: UC Irvine senior baseball standout Steve Schroer has

been named Big West Conference Pitcher of the Week after leading the

Anteaters to their first tournament win at the Public Storage/USC

Baseball Classic last weekend.

The 6-foot-2 right-hander was named Most Valuable Pitcher at the

three-game tournament, after collecting wins against No. 9 Wichita

State (March 11) and No. 20 USC (Sunday).

Schroer threw three innings of relief to get the win against the

Shockers, then pitched a career-high seven innings as the starter

against USC. Through Thursday, Schroer was 3-2 with a 2.63 ERA. He

has 20 strikeouts in 27 1/3 innings.

The tournament championship is the first of any kind for the UCI

since the program moved to Division I in 1977-78.

Bentzer earns accolade

* TENNIS: UC Irvine women’s tennis senior Anna Bentzer was named

Big West Player of the Week for her performances against Yale and

Loyola Marymount. Bentzer defeated Serena Fermin of Loyola Marymount,

6-0, 6-0, and Reshmi Srinath of Yale, 6-0, 6-0, for a perfect week.

This is the third time this season that Bentzer has won the award and

the seventh in her career, more than any player in the history of the

award. She is currently 12-3 at the No. 1 singles position and is

22-7 overall on the year and 85-24 in her career.