Thomas Rowan and Armani Smith each homered, Jack Dashwood delivered a quality start, and the No. 25 UC Santa Barbara baseball team equaled the longest winning streak in program history with a 7-1 win over Cal Baptist on Saturday afternoon at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.
The series clinching win gives the Gauchos (14-2) their 12th consecutive victory, matching the longest streak in UCSB Baseball history which was set in 1984.
Making his first home start of the season, sophomore Dashwood was tagged with a home run on his first pitch of the game. The 6-foot-6 left-hander regrouped in a big way, settling in for 6.1 innings, allowing just the one run, and striking out eight while scattering six hits on 97 pitches.
The Gauchos responded immediately in the bottom of the first, using an RBI double off the bat of Eric Yang and a bases-loaded walk to Andrew Martinez, to take over the lead for good, 2-1.
In the third inning, Rowan sent the first pitch he saw over the left field fence for his second home run of the year. And in the fourth, Tevin Mitchell made the Lancers pay for an error with an RBI single to drive in Christian Kirtley, who reached on an errant throw from the third basemen.
UCSB took advantage of three CBU errors in the game, with four of their seven runs scored unearned.
Another error in the fifth allowed Yang to come around and score on a poor cut off throw after a Rowan single. Smith followed with an opposite field, two-run home run to give the Gauchos their 7-1 lead. For Smith, it was his second home run in as many days and fourth of the year.
Kevin Chandler (1.1 innings), Joshua Candau (0.1) and Alex Patterson (1.0) were solid in relief, combining for 2.2 scoreless innings to close out the game.
Yang and Rowan both finished 2-for-4 with two runs and an RBI while Smith and Mitchell also added a hit apiece.
UCSB will close out the series with Cal Baptist tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 p.m. at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.