The UC Santa Barbara Baseball team (34-15, 19-8 Big West) jumped out to a big first-inning lead and made it stick on Sunday afternoon, completing a three-game sweep of CSUN (24-26, 11-16 Big West) with a 4-2 win.
With the victory, the Gauchos punched their ticket to The Big West Championship in Irvine, where they are guaranteed one of the top two seeds.
That front-row positioning means that Santa Barbara will skip over the single-elimination play-in game that begins the weekend, which is where their season ended in 2025.
After playing from behind in each of this weekend’s first two games, the Gauchos got off to one of their fastest starts of the season on Sunday, hanging four runs on the board and going through three different Matador pitchers in the top of the first inning.
Liam Barrett and Corey Nunez each worked full-count walks, then a fielding error allowed Nate Vargas to reach safely and load the bases. Rowan Kelly’s chip-shot single into shallow center moved everybody up 90 feet and put the first run on the board.
After a pitching change, William Vasseur punched a two-run single back up the middle, and Nick Husovsky continued his hot weekend at the plate with another RBI base hit into center field.
After the offense’s big inning, Kellan Montgomery went about defending his team’s four-run lead. He retired the first seven batters he faced before a one-out double in the third, but a strikeout and a groundout ended that threat.
The veteran righty worked around a one-out single with two more groundouts in the fourth, then stranded a pair of Matadors on the bases in the bottom of the fifth.
The home team finally got to Montgomery in the sixth, a leadoff triple ending his afternoon.
Cole Tryba entered in relief and got off to a rocky start, allowing that run and one more to score and cut the Gauchos’ lead to just 4-2, but the electric lefty settled in and went on to finish the game.
He struck out a pair of Matadors to strand a one-out single in the seventh, then picked up two more strikeouts in the eighth, with only a hit batter against him.
The tying run did come to the plate for CSUN in the ninth, but Tryba’s sixth strikeout of the day, then a groundout to third base put the game to rest.
The Gauchos return to Caesar Uyesaka Stadium for their final regular-season non-conference action of the year on Monday, May 11, when they host California Baptist at 4:35 p.m. for Faculty and Staff Appreciation Night.
Santa Barbara concludes the regular season with a three-game series against UC Riverside, May 14-16, then heads to Irvine for The Big West Championship the following week.
Guaranteed to be one of the top two seeds, the Gauchos will open their conference tournament run on Thursday, May 21.
Santa Barbara enters the final week of the regular season tied with Cal Poly atop The Big West standings, with the Gauchos holding the tiebreaker.
They therefore need to just match Cal Poly’s results this weekend to claim the conference regular season championship and no. 1 seed.