A barrage of long balls lifted the UC Santa Barbara baseball team to an 8-5 victory over Loyola Marymount on Saturday afternoon.
The Gauchos belted four home runs and racked up 13 total hits against the visiting Lions. UCSB has scored 21 runs through the first two games of the three-game series.
“We’re starting to get healthier and injured guys are starting to get back,” said UCSB head coach Andrew Checketts of the offensive uptick. “It’s hard when you’re hurt and you’re out and you miss some of those practice reps.”
Grad transfer Isaac Kim is one of the UCSB players, who has missed time with injury this season and his presence in the middle of the lineup paid huge dividends for the Gauchos on Saturday.
Kim blasted a two-run homer to left that tied the score at 2-2 in the bottom of the first inning and set the tone for the Gauchos’ offense.
Nate Vargas and Jonathan Mendez followed with solo homers later in the inning as the Gauchos took a 4-2 lead.
The Gauchos added three more runs in the bottom of the second inning. Back-to-back singles by Corey Nunez and Liam Barrett to open the inning were followed by a LeTrey McCollum double that scored Nunez. Barrett came around to score on a Jack Holman ground out and McCollum came home on a Kim groundout, increasing the UCSB lead to 7-2.
UCSB starting pitcher Frank Camarillo managed to keep the Loyola Marymount offense under control until the top of the fifth inning when a two-run homer by Beau Ankeney cut the Lions’ deficit to 7-5 prompting Checketts to go with A.J. Krodel in relief.
Krodel was magnificent, tossing 2.2 scoreless innings before giving way to Cole Tryba to start the eighth inning. Tryba went two scoreless innings to earn his fifth save of the season.
“We got really quality relief pitching,” Checketts said. “A.J. was really good and Cole looked like himself.”
Holman, a transfer from UCLA, closed the scoring with a majestic home run to right field that gave the Gauchos an 8-5 lead. It was his eighth homer of the season.
With the victory the Gauchos improved to 33-16 overall. They are 19-3 against non-conference competition.
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