By Jesse Muñoz/COC Sports Information Director

College of the Canyons student-athletes Julia Fuentes (softball) and Christian Cruz (men’s swim & dive) have been named the COC Athletic Department’s Women’s & Men’s Student-Athletes of the Week for the period running Feb. 13-18. Fuentes and Cruz are the seventh set of honorees for 2023.

Julia Fuentes/ Softball

Fuentes belted a two-run home run and later came-away with a walk-off RBI-single to complete a comeback bid and push Canyons ahead of L.A. Mission by a 9-8 final score to win the team’s conference opener last Tuesday at Whitten Field.

The sophomore slugger finished the game 2-for-5 with three clutch RBIs and a run scored. Fuentes’ two-run home run in the bottom of the seventh brought Canyons to within a run of the Eagles at 7-6. Both her homer and RBI-single in the eighth brought the Lady Cougars screaming out of the home dugout.

Two days later Fuentes recorded a hit in COC’s 2-1 loss at Citrus College to extend her hit streak to six games.

The Valencia High School graduate has hit safely in all but one game this year and is batting .435 with six RBIs and a team-leading 10 runs scored.

Christian Cruz / Men’s Swim & Dive

Cruz was the Cougars’ top swimmer at Western State Conference (WSC) Meet No. 1 hosted by Allan Hancock College on Friday, with his standout performance helping the Cougars finish runner-up in the team standings.

The freshman from Granada Hills Charter took the top spot in both the 50-yard freestyle (23.78) and 100-yard backstroke (1:01.53) events.

He then swam in the anchor position for the 200-yard freestyle relay team that included Bence Endresz, Martin Wise

and Keanu Pence. That combination swam to a first-place time of 1:36.56.

Earlier in the meet it was Cruz joined by Wise, Pence and Endresz clocking a time of 1:50.97 to finish third in the 200-yard medley relay.

Those results helped Canyons log its best finish at a WSC meet since the 2019 season.

Stay up to date on all this season’s action by following the College of the Canyons Athletic department on social media at @COCathletics on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.