For the first time in 2024, UCSB Baseball lost at home.
The Oregon Ducks defeated the Gauchos 2-1 in a nail-biting pitchers’ duel in the winner’s bracket of the Santa Barbara Regional to hand them their first loss at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium of the season on Saturday.
The Ducks advance to the championship of the Santa Barbara Regional, while the Gauchos will play the San Diego Toreros, who eliminated Fresno State earlier on Saturday, for the second spot in the Regional championship and an opportunity for a rematch with Oregon.
UCSB now needs to win three consecutive games between Sunday and Monday to win the Regional.
The Gauchos face the Toreros on Sunday at 12 p.m., while Oregon will await the winner to play at 6 p.m.
Should the winner of Sunday’s 12 p.m. matchup defeat the Ducks on Sunday evening, a final game will be played Monday to determine the champion of the Santa Barbara Regional.
Tyler Bremner started on the mound for UCSB. In 6 ⅔ innings, Bremner allowed just one run on seven hits and two walks while striking out eight, though he did pick up Saturday’s loss.
Jackson Flora, Reed Moring and Matt Ager also pitched for the Gauchos, with just Flora allowing one run.
Grayson Grinsell started on the mound for Oregon, throwing seven shutout innings and allowing just three hits and four walks while picking up nine strikeouts and Saturday’s win.
“The changeup was good,” UCSB head coach Andrew Checketts commented on Grinsell’s performance.
“We had a good game plan… If you look at his numbers, the actual amount of pitches that he throws in the [strike] zone isn’t very high. So our game plan was to try to look middle and make him come in the zone. He did a good job, he was in [the] zone more than we anticipated.”
“I’d say the trust in the guys behind me,” Grinsell commented when asked what allowed him to stymie the Gauchos. “It’s a confident feeling being up there when you’ve got the defense that we have.”
Ryan Featherston pitched the final two innings for the Ducks, allowing one run and earning Saturday’s save.
Though the game’s first run didn’t score until the seventh inning, there were plenty of opportunities to score beforehand, particularly for the Gauchos.
UCSB stranded runners at the corners in the first inning, with Zander Darby on third and Jessada Brown on first with one out.
The Gauchos also stranded a pair in the fourth inning and left a man at third base in the fifth.
Brown led off the sixth inning for the Gauchos with a ground-rule double into the right-field corner. After Aaron Parker struck out, Brown stole third base during Nick Oakley’s plate appearance, who then drew a walk.
Jonah Sebring then struck out to bring Justin Trimble to the plate with runners at the corners and two outs. On an 0-2 count, Brown took off from third base in an attempt to steal home, but was thrown out to seemingly end the inning.
“That was not the play we had on. We did not have steal[ing] home on. We had a play on, but not that one,” Checketts said after the game.
The umpiring crew then convened and decided to go to replay review to confirm that Grinsell stepped off the rubber of the pitcher’s mound before throwing Brown out at home.
If Grinsell kept his foot on the rubber, the throw would have been considered a pitch, and thus Oregon catcher Chase Meggers coming out of his stance to the front of the plate to apply the tag would have been illegal.
However, after a replay review, it was determined that Grinsell did step off the mound and the out on Brown was confirmed, ending the inning.
Oregon also stranded five runners through six innings before scoring, two of them in scoring position.
The Ducks scored the game’s first run in the seventh inning.
Justin Cassella singled up the middle with one out and stole second base during the next at-bat. In that same at-bat, Carter Garate singled up the middle to score Cassella from second base.
The Gauchos were fortunate to limit the Ducks to just that one run in the seventh inning.
Garate advanced to second base on a sacrifice bunt and to third on a wild pitch. Mason Neville then drew a walk with two outs to give Oregon runners at the corners and bring Meggers to the plate.
Flora threw over to third base in an unsuccessful attempt to pick off Garate and during the throw over, Neville took off for second base but was then caught in a rundown.
Trimble, after receiving a throw at first base, noticed Garate taking off for home plate and ran him down all the way from first base to catch him stranded in no man’s land.
Trimble went to apply the tag on Garate near home plate for the third out, but slipped and missed the tag, allowing Garate to cross home plate.
Home plate umpire Javerro January, however, ruled that Garate stepped out of the basepath during the rundown and called him out to end the inning.
After Featherston replaced Grinsell and tossed a scoreless eighth, Meggers led off the bottom half for the Ducks with a double into left field.
He was pinch-run for by Jack Brooks, who advanced to third base on a wild pitch. Brooks came around to score on Drew Smith’s groundout to Jonathan Mendez at shortstop.
The Gauchos rallied in the top of the ninth inning to give themselves a chance to win, but ultimately came up devastatingly short.
Parker led off the inning reaching on a first-pitch hit by pitch. Nick Oakley then drove a double into deep right field to give the Gauchos two runners in scoring position with no outs.
After Sebring struck out, Trimble drew a walk to load the bases with one out.
With the potential tying run on second base and go-ahead run on first base, Jonathan Mendez struck out for the inning’s second out.
Brendan Durfee, who last played May 7 against Pepperdine before suffering a wrist injury, was called upon to pinch hit with the bases loaded and two outs, down 2-0.
Durfee was hit by a pitch on a 1-2 count to score the Gauchos’ first run, with the umpiring crew consulting replay review to confirm the hit by pitch.
With the tying run on third base and potential lead run another 90 feet away, Ivan Brethowr grounded out to third base on the first pitch to end the game.
The Gauchos’ first of potentially two games on Sunday is scheduled for 12 p.m. against San Diego, with tickets going on sale Sunday at 9 a.m. at ucsbgauchos.com.
“If any group can come back out of the losers’ bracket, it’s this group based on what they’ve done and the adversity they’ve had to go through,” Checketts said.