Catcher Nate Vargas smacked his third home run of the season and added another RBI double on Friday, but he was the only hitter on the UC Santa Barbara Baseball team (20-11, 8-5 Big West) who could solve UC San Diego (15-14, 11-2 Big West) starter Steele Murdock on the day.

Vargas’ fifth-inning home run was one of just three hits against Murdock over eight innings, and the Gaucho backstop’s RBI double came in the ninth, after Murdock was done.

The clutch two-bagger was part of a ninth-inning rally for Santa Barbara, but they came up one run short, falling by a score of 4-3.

It was a pitcher’s duel for the first seven innings on Friday, as Murdock crossed swords with Gaucho ace Jackson Flora on the bump. Flora’s day was more workman-like than dominant, with a pair of errors prolonging innings and ultimately leading to an unearned run in the fifth inning.

That ended the righty’s scoreless streak at 38 2/3 innings, nearly lapping the last Gaucho to assemble a shutout stretch of at least 20 innings (Kyle Nelson’s 20 2/3 from 2016). It was also the only blemish on Flora’s ledger for the day, though having taken 91 pitches to get through five innings, Cole Tryba was summoned to take over in the sixth.
 
The lefty picked up where Flora had left off, working a perfect sixth with a pair of strikeouts and stranding a one-out double at second in the seventh to keep the game tied. However, things unraveled in the seventh.

A two-out walk and a hit batter loaded the bases, and a miscommunication in the outfield allowed a shallow fly ball to fall, bringing home all three Triton runs and giving the visitors a 4-1 lead.
 
That three-run margin looked like quite the mountain because, aside from during the fifth inning, the Gauchos had hardly gotten anything going against Murdock. Nick Husovsky was the only Santa Barbara batter to reach second base in the first four frames, and he did so via a balk with two outs in the third.

Vargas touched it as he rounded the bases after his lead-off home run on the first pitch of the fifth, but that was it until the ninth. Santa Barbara had looked like they could chase Murdock in that fifth, as Corey Nunez followed up Vargas’ homer with a screaming lineout to shortstop and Max Stagg a hard-hit single to left center, but a pair of strikeouts — two of 17 on the afternoon for Murdock — ended the frame.
 
The Tritons finally pulled their starter at the beginning of the ninth, and the Gauchos immediately punished them for it. Rowan Kelly and Liam Barrett smacked back-to-back singles, then Mendez made it three straight hits with a frozen rope back up the middle.

That prompted another pitching change, and a double play dampened Santa Barbara’s momentum, despite a run coming home on the play. Vargas was next to bat and drove in another run, making it 4-3, with an opposite-field double into the left-center gap, but was left stranded as the tying run on second as a flyout ended the game.

The Gauchos will look to even up the series as they return to Caesar Uyesaka Stadium on Saturday, April 11 for the second of three games against UC San Diego, at 1:05 p.m. Saturday’s game, like Friday’s has been moved forward to avoid rain forecast overnight.

The plan worked great on Friday, with much of the contest being played under sunlight. Tickets are on sale now at ucsbgauchos.com/tickets.