The UC Santa Barbara Baseball team took a 5-0 lead early and held on late, earning a 5-4 win over the No. 16 UC Irvine Anteaters in a nationally televised contest Saturday night. 

Mike Gutierrez held the Anteaters scoreless over six innings to earn the win, while Jackson Flora earned the save, highlighted by a tremendous play in the bottom of the ninth. 

Jonah Sebring also made a big play on defense that would end up proving vital. On offense, Nick Oakley and Jonathan Mendez combined to drive in four of the Gauchos’ five runs, while both Aaron Parker and Jessada Brown had three-hit nights.

“Nice job offensively early, really good job of not chasing, and we got the crooked number in the third,” UCSB head coach Andrew Checketts said. “Gutierrez had loose command but did enough, battled through what I would consider a rough good start, then we held on.

Santa Barbara jumped on Irvine early, with Brendan Durfee leading off the game with a double and coming around to score on a Zander Darby groundout.

With Gutierrez keeping the Anteaters at bay, the Gauchos stretched their advantage with a big third inning, scoring four runs in the frame.

Parker, Darby and Brown all singled in that order to load the bases before recording an out, then Oakley drove a two-RBI single through the right side to make it 3-0 Santa Barbara.

Oakley and Brown took second and third on a two-out double steal, which Mendez cashed in with a flare to right, scoring the pair of them for Gaucho runs numbers four and five.

Gutierrez worked around traffic in the third, fourth and fifth innings, getting a massive hand from his center fielder in the fifth.

With a runner on second, Sebring got himself settled under a fly ball before uncorking a perfect throw to third base, beating the speedy Anteater Jo Oyama by multiple steps for a double play.

The next batter knocked a single, which would have scored a run if not for Sebring’s throw.

While Gutierrez was able to get through the sixth without surrendering a run, his pitch count had climbed to 127 in the process, meaning his night was done. Cole Tryba relieved him and Irvine finally got on the board.

The Anteaters hung three runs on the board in the bottom of the seventh, then made things extra interesting with another run in the eighth, bringing Flora out of the bullpen.

He got the final two outs of the eighth inning, stranding the tying run at third base to keep the score 5-4 in favor of Santa Barbara.

The Gauchos were not able to get any insurance runs in their half of the ninth, so their freshman closer would have to hold on to just the single run lead. A lead-off walk did not help his case, but what happened next sure did.

Flora, who also played shortstop in high school, charged off the mound and laid out to catch a popped-up bunt, then threw over to first, doubling off the runner there. Bases empty, two outs. His lone strikeout of the game ended it.

“That’s not exactly how we practice it, but I’ll take it in that moment,” Checketts said of Flora’s ninth-inning double play. “Big out by Jonah there (in the fifth). He didn’t know at the time how big that was going to be.”

The Gauchos will go for the series win on Sunday, April 7 at 1 p.m. in the rubber match of this series. Matt Ager is set to take the mound for the Gauchos in Irvine.

Fans can catch all the action live on ESPN+ or follow along with live stats and an audio broadcast available throughucsbgauchos.com.