The UC Santa Barbara baseball team won a pitcher’s duel at USC under the lights at Dedeaux Field, 2-1, on Tuesday.
Sophomore Jack Dashwood (2-0) took a no-hitter into the seventh inning and fanned a career-high 10 batters, while Tommy Jew carried the load offensively for the Gauchos (6-2), hitting a leadoff home run for the second straight game and finishing a double shy of the cycle.
Dashwood’s 10 strikeouts are the most for a Gaucho pitcher since Noah Davis struck out 10 at Tulane in the 2017 season. The sophomore southpaw picked up his second win in as many starts this season after finishing seven strong, allowing just one earned run on two hits.
The game showed no signs of being a pitcher’s duel from the first at-bat, as Jew blasted his second leadoff homer of the season to put the Gauchos ahead. After an Eric Yang double later in the inning, UCSB and USC were held without a hit until a Jew single in the sixth.
Dashwood cruised through the Trojans’ lineup, striking out at least one batter in six of his seven frames, and striking out two batters in four of those innings.
In the seventh inning, Thomas Rowan became just the third Gaucho to record a hit on the night, singling through the left side with one out. After a passed ball and an effective groundout to first base from Christian Kirtley moved Rowan to third, a wild pitch allowed him to score to make it a 2-0 game.
That run would prove crucial as the USC bats would wake up for three hits in the eighth, getting one run back to cut the deficit in half, 2-1.
The Trojans threatened in the bottom of the ninth, putting runners on the corners with just one out. But reliever Chris Lincoln induced a pop out and ground out to end the game.
Lincoln earned his second save of the year after coming in to get the final four outs, and Michael McGreevy also saw 2/3 innings of action in relief, striking out one.
Jew finished 3-for-4 with a run and an RBI while Rowan and Yang both went 1-for-4.
Chandler Champlain (0-2) was tagged with the loss for USC (3-4) after going five innings and allowing one run on two hits with six strikeouts.
UCSB returns home this weekend with a three-game series at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium against Pepperdine, with the first game set for Friday, March 1 at 2 p.m.