The UC Santa Barbara baseball team fell 5-2 in its home contest with No. 22 UCLA Saturday afternoon as the Bruins evened the series at 1-1. The weekend will now come down to Sunday’s rubber match down in Los Angeles.
Rodney Boone took the mound for the Gauchos and had another solid afternoon, tossing six innings of three-hit ball. He struck out six and allowed two earned runs.
UCSB got on the board first with Broc Mortensen crushing his 11th home run of the season to tie for the conference lead. The Broc bomb went well over the right-center wall and gave his team a 1-0 lead.
UCLA knotted the score on a Kyle Karros solo shot. The Bruins threatened again in the top half of the third putting a runner on third with just one out, but Boone managed to escape unscathed by retiring the next two batters.
The expected pitcher’s duel then settled in through the middle innings with neither team coming up with more than a pair of hits and a few walks through the four scoreless innings.
The Bruins took the lead with two runs in the seventh.
The Gauchos answered in bottom half as Kyle Johnson belted a homer to left field, cutting the lead to 3-2.
UCLA put up two more in the top of the ninth to take the contest 5-2.
The Gauchos will now head back down to Jackie Robinson Stadium for the final game of the series at 2 p.m.