The UC Santa Barbara Baseball team (15-8) had No. 20 Oregon (22-4) locked in a pitchers’ duel right up until the final inning Friday evening, when a series of unfortunate events gave the Ducks a trio of insurance runs in what would end up as a 4-0 win for the visitors.
Gaucho ace Jackson Flora and Oregon top gun Will Sanford, named the no. 2 and no. 19 starting pitchers in the country, respectively, by D1Baseball earlier in the day, traded five-inning, shutout starts, with Flora just out-doing Sanford with five strikeouts and just three walks to his counterpart in green’s five walks and just four strikeouts.
“Lot of traffic early, nobody seemed to be able to punch through,” UCSB head coach Andrew Checketts said. “We needed to be able to get a hit, we had plenty of chances. I don’t know how many times we had the bases loaded and just couldn’t get a hit, lined out to somebody.
“I thought Ray (Olivas) did a solid job out of the bullpen, even Hoover, that’s a rough three (runs against). We should have made the play at short, he gives up a base hit bunt that we should have defended as well and then the runs score because we balk and don’t play team defense on the first-and-third with the priority runner at third. So, that’s a pretty rough three for Hoov. I though he threw the ball better than that.”
On the mound, the dueling aces had to work for their shutouts, as Flora and Sanford each only faced the minimum in one of their five innings, Sanford the second and Flora the fifth.
The traffic was exacerbated by both starters having to contend with a seemingly tight strike zone as well, though neither was exactly dotting the ball up on the night; there were a total of nine unintentional walks in the game, and eight of those belonged to the two starters.
Flora picked up his first strikeout of the night to make nothing out of a two-out error in the first, then worked around back-to-back walks to start the second, picking up another K before a groundout to short ended things.
He then stranded two more Ducks on the proverbial pond in the third after a leadoff double and another walk, doing so with a pair of strikeouts and then a flyout to right.
Two wild pitches in the fourth put a Duck on third with one out, but Flora’s fifth strikeout and a groundout to short got him out of the inning unscathed. In his final frame of work, he set the Ducks down in order with a flyout, groundout and pop-up.
On the other side of the ball, the Gauchos would eventually rue a handful of missed chances against Sanford. Santa Barbara came up empty-handed after getting two on with two outs in the bottom of the first, and were frustrated even more to leave the third with nothing to show on the scoreboard.
Rowan Kelly and Nico Libed both drew one-out walks, and Cole Kosciusko lined a single back up the middle, but because of how low his line drive was, the runners had to wait and see if an Oregon fielder snagged it.
Kelly therefore only made it to third, and a strikeout and lineout meant the Gauchos left the bases loaded. Santa Barbara left the bags juiced again the very next inning, with Noah Karliner walking and Corey Nunez punching a single through the left side of the infield to start the rally. Even after a two-out error kept the inning alive, the Gauchos were not able to plate any runs.
In the fifth, Kosciusko’s walk and Colin Beazizo’s second hit-by-pitch of the game set up the Gauchos again, but their momentum was cut short by a popout and then a 10-minute-long delay when William Vasseur was called out for interference on a play where Beazizo was also caught stealing.
Eventually, the umpires clarified that Vasseur’s interference had made the play dead, giving Beazizo and the Gauchos another life, but they were not able to make anything of it. That was the last time Santa Barbara got a runner to second base on the evening.
Oregon’s seventh-inning solo home run would therefore have been enough to win the game, though they did add three runs in the top of the ninth. A bunt single was not the start to the frame Santa Barbara would have liked, and a tough play for Nunez at shortstop ended up as an infield single.
A double to right scored one run, a balk brought home another, and first-and-third rundown play saw the Ducks plate their fourth run of the night from third before the runner on first was tagged out to end the inning.
The Gauchos went down in order in their half of the ninth.
Santa Barbara and Oregon return to Caesar Uyesaka Stadium for the second game of this three-game series on Saturday, March 28 at 3:05 p.m. Tickets are on sale now at ucsbgauchos.com/tickets.