Timely hitting and a gem from starting pitcher Jackson Flora boosted the UC Santa Barbara baseball team to a 4-0 victory over rival Cal Poly in the final contest of a three-game series on Saturday afternoon.
Flora tossed a complete game shutout, limiting the visiting Mustangs to one hit in a lights out big game performance. The Gauchos bounced back from a 4-3 loss in extra innings on Thursday to open the series with a 5-4 victory on Friday, and captured the crucial Big West Conference series after Saturday’s win.
“It was a very big series against a really good well-coached team. Obviously Jackson Flora was special today.” said UCSB head coach Andrew Checketts.”His last four outings have been really good and consistent. That was really good. He carried the team on his back today.”
UCSB started strong offensively with back-to-back hits by Xavier Esquer and LeTrey mcCollum in the bottom of the first inning. Jonathan Mendez was hit by a pitch with one out to load the bases and Nathan Vargas followed with a Sacrifice Fly that scored Esquer and gave the Gauchos a 1-0 lead.
Freshman Rowan Kelly displayed his electricity on the basepaths for UCSB in the bottom of the second inning. He singled to lead off the inning, stole second, advanced to third on a groundout and scored on a wild pitch with two outs increasing the Gauchos’ lead to 2-0.
Vargas closed the scoring in the bottom of the third inning with a clutch two-run homer to center field with two outs. It was his sixth home run of the season.
The 4-0 lead was more than enough for Flora, who flexed his mid-to-upper nineties fastball with devastating results on his way to nine strikeouts.
Cal Poly gained some traction offensively in the top of the fourth inning. Zach Daudet was hit by the first pitch of the inning. Alejandro Garza reached on a UCSB error with one out in the inning and Jack Collins followed with a walk to load the bases.
Flora escaped the jam with a strikeout of Casey Murray with the count full and induced a Cam Hoiland ground out to end the inning.
“My team needed me to go out there and throw strikes and I did my job,” Flora said. “You can’t get ahead of yourself and try to strike everybody out. You just have to execute the pitch and it worked out.”
Flora’s pitch count was up over 100 when he came out to pitch in the top of the ninth inning, but his stuff was still sharp as he retired the Mustangs in order to close out the ball game.
With the victory UCSB improves to 26-12 overall this season and 12-9 in Big West Conference play. The Gauchos are currently in fourth place and the top five teams in the standings advance to the Big West Conference Tournament.
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