The UC Santa Barbara baseball team hung tough with No. 20 ranked Oregon on Friday night, but the visiting Ducks pulled away with three runs in the top of the ninth inning to secure a 4-0 victory in a crucial non-conference clash.
A high-profile matchup between UCSB ace Jackson Flora and Oregon ace Will Sanford lived up to its billing as both pitchers delivered five scoreless innings on the mound. However, both pitchers struggled with control leading to relatively early exits as Flora slightly outpaced his counterpart, finishing with five strikeouts and three walks, while Sanford recorded four strikeouts but issued five walks.
“There was a lot of traffic early and nobody seemed to be able to punch through. We needed to be able to get a hit. We had plenty of chances,” said UCSB coach Andrew Checketts. “I don’t know how many times we had the bases loaded and just couldn’t get a hit or lined out to somebody.”
Flora repeatedly worked out of trouble. He stranded runners in scoring position in the second and third innings, as the Gauchos used a mix of strikeouts and timely defense to escape jams. In the fourth, Flora navigated around two wild pitches that moved a runner to third, ending the threat with a strikeout and a groundout. He closed his outing by retiring Oregon in order in the fifth.
Sanford was similarly effective, though UC Santa Barbara had several key chances to score. The Gauchos put runners on base in multiple innings but failed to deliver a timely hit. In the third inning, they loaded the bases with one out after back-to-back walks by Rowan Kelly and Nico Lided and a lined single up the middle by Cole Kosciusko but came away empty. Nick Husofsky scored a lined drive that was right at the Oregon right fielder. They stranded the bases loaded again in the fourth, continuing a pattern of missed opportunities.
Another chance slipped away in the fifth inning, when a walk and a hit-by-pitch set up another potential rally. A lengthy delay followed an apparent strikeout and throw out situation by Oregon and ultimately kept the inning alive due to interference, but UC Santa Barbara could not capitalize. That inning marked the last time the Gauchos advanced a runner to second base.
With both offenses stalled, Oregon finally broke through in the seventh inning with a solo home run, which proved to be the decisive. Jack Brooks lifted a first-pitch breaking ball over the right-center field fence to give the Ducks a 1-0 lead.
The Ducks added insurance in the ninth, taking advantage of a series of UCSB defensive lapses with impressive small-ball execution. A bunt single and an infield hit set the stage, followed by a run-scoring double. A balk and a rundown play with runners on the corners allowed two more runs to cross the plate before the inning ended.
“We were a little out of position there at the end,” Checketts said. “We talked about our baseball clocks with the priority runner at third even if we don’t get the out we can’t let that guys score and now have to chase four runs with their closer coming into the game.”
With the loss UCSB dropped to 15-8 overall this season. Oregon improved to 22-4 with the victory.
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