After the first week of NCAA baseball, the nation’s RBI leader with 13 is Jonah Advincula, a junior transfer from Santa Clara, California who spent the last three seasons at Division III Redlands University in California.

These were Advincula’s first games at the Division III level, and, safe to say, so far so good. He has 13 RBIs in four games to lead the nation, as well as eight hits, tied for ninth in the nation, and three stolen bases, good for a tie at 24th in the nation.

His 2020 freshmen year saw him appear in 17 games where he had 15 RBIs and one home run. He also went 11-of-12 in stolen bases on the season. In 2021 Advincula appeared in 16 games with seven RBIs and one home run again. He was 7-for-7 in stolen bases as well.

2022 was when Advincula took a major stride in his career. He played 39 games in the season and had a batting average of .430 with 65 hits, seven home runs and 38 RBIs. He stole 28 bases on the season as he was named to the ABCA Division III All-West Region First Team as well as the D3baseball All-West Region First Team.

His 65 hits in the 2022 season are tied for the third-most in a single season in Redlands program history. His 54 runs scored were fifth most in program history and tied for fourth-most stolen bases in a season with 28.

In his 16 at-bats this season Advincula is hitting .500 with eight hits, two home runs and 13 RBIs. He has struck out three times, walked three times and was hit by two pitches over the weekend. Advincula has also scored four runs so far this season.

“Jonah’s a special athlete,” head coach Brian Green said postgame. “He’s off to a really good start in 2023.”

Advincula has been nothing short of excellent after the first week of play. He got off to a slow start in the first game against Villanova Friday but made up for it Saturday in the first game against UC Riverside. He went 4-for-5 with two home runs and eight RBIs. He got his first RBI in the second inning with a two-RBI double. In the fifth inning, Advincula hit a two-run home run. In the eighth inning, Advincula took a 0-1 pitch deep for a grand slam to put the finishing touches on a 17-4 rout of the Highlanders.

“Jonah just went nuts,” Green said.

Later that day the Cougs took on Villanova, where the Cougs put up 22 runs in one game as the Wildcats could only manage seven runs in the game. Advincula once again was the star as he had three RBIs and one hit in the game. He got his first RBI of the game in the second inning with a sacrifice bunt that drove in a run. In the sixth inning, Advincula had an RBI single to extend the Cougs’ lead in the game. His final RBI of the game came when he was hit by a pitch in the eighth inning, one where the Cougs scored 10 total runs.

On Sunday, the Cougs defeated UC Riverside 8–6 behind three hits and two RBIs from Advincula. In the sixth, he hit a two-run RBI single to break the tie in the game and help the Cougs win their first four games of the season.

Look for Advincula and the Cougs to try and extend their winning streak Friday as they take on UC Irvine in their first game in the Tony Gwynn Classic. They will play four games over four days, taking on UC Irvine, San Diego State, UC San Diego and UNLV.