UCSB Baseball punched its ticket to the Big West tournament semifinals with a 7-4 victory over CSU Fullerton on Thursday at Anteater Ballpark in Irvine.
The Gauchos, the top seed in the tournament, will take on No. 2 Cal Poly for a Blue-Green Rivalry matchup on Friday at 1 p.m. UCSB swept Cal Poly in their three-game set in the regular season.
UCSB starter and top MLB draft prospect Jackson Flora led the charge in the tournament-opening win, allowing one run on three hits while striking out nine in seven innings of work.
“Well, I was joking in the dugout that I’m a pretty good coach when (Flora) pitches and a lot of the stuff that I call works when he pitches,” UCSB head coach Andrew Checketts said. “That’s sarcasm there, but with a player like that going out there, leading us, somebody that wants to win, somebody that’s not only talented but cares about the team and gets after it … makes it fun to come to the ballpark every day.
“That’s his 11th win of the season, and he probably threw well enough to win another two or three games where we didn’t score. (He) sets the tone for us and gives us a chance every weekend to win on Friday.”
After Flora worked a scoreless top of the first, the Gaucho offense got right to work in their half of the opening frame.
Liam Barrett led off with a walk and, after a sacrifice bunt from Corey Nunez, Nate Vargas roped an RBI double into right-center field to take a 1-0 lead. UCSB then took advantage of a Titan error, as a dropped fly ball in left field put runners on second and third with one out.
Rowan Kelly followed with a single through the left side of the infield to score Vargas, and the ball was misplayed in the outfield once again to allow William Vasseur to come in to score to take a 3-0 lead into the second.
Flora made quick work of CSU Fullerton in the second, and the Gauchos continued to roll in the bottom half of the second.
Barrett drove in the first run of the second on an RBI groundout to score Jonathan Mendez, who doubled to lead off the inning. One batter later, Vargas blasted a two-run homer over the right-field wall to expand the lead out to 6-0.
That score held until the top of the seventh inning, as Flora continued to mow through the Titan offense. CSU Fullerton finally scratched a run across in the seventh on an RBI single, but the flamethrowing righthander set down the next two batters to end his outing strong.
“The offense made my job pretty easy today,” Flora said. “When you ambush them and get up early like that, for me there’s no pressure out there and I just need to attack and get shutdown innings, get zeroes and help the team win.”
UCSB immediately got that run back in the bottom of the seventh on an RBI single by Mendez to score Nick Husovsky to make it a 7-1 lead.
Josh Janicelli took over for Flora in the eighth and the Titans made things interesting, as a three-run homer off the bat of Cameron Kim cut the UCSB lead to 7-4 heading into the bottom of the eighth.
After the Gauchos were held off the board in the eighth, Janicelli took the mound again in the ninth.
The right-hander surrendered a pair of free passes and the tying run came to the plate with two outs, but Janicelli buckled down and got a strikeout to slam the door on the Titans.
Vargas paced the UCSB offense by reaching four times, while driving in three runs and scoring two of his own. Barrett, meanwhile, reached base three times and Mendez tallied a pair of hits for the Gauchos.