UCSB softball fell out of the winners’ bracket of the Big West Championships with a 2-0 loss to No. 2 seed Hawai’i on Thursday at Anderson Family Field in Fullerton.
The No. 3-seeded Gauchos will now head into an elimination game against either UC Davis (No. 4) or Long Beach State (No. 5) on Friday at 4 p.m. UC Davis and Long Beach State will square off on Thursday at 7 p.m.
UCSB was shut out on Thursday despite outhitting the Rainbow Wahine 9-8, as the Gauchos struggled to come through with runners in scoring position all day long.
Meanwhile, Hawaii scored the game’s lone runs in the first two innings on an RBI double in the first and a run-scoring single in the second.
Danie Rauscher led the UCSB offense by going 3-for-4 at the top of the lineup, while Emily Carr and Giselle Mejia each had two hits for the Gauchos.
Sophia Clark tossed 5 ⅔ strong innings for UCSB, allowing just the two runs and striking out a pair of batters. Malaya Johnson got the final out of the sixth.