Gauchos earn #1 seed at Big West Championships following sweep of Riverside
UC SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) - The Gauchos will enter next week's Big West Championships as the top seed after completing a 3-game sweep of UC Riverside 5-3 on Senior Day.
The Gauchos share the regular season Big West title with Cal Poly but UCSB owns the tiebreaker with a sweep of Cal Poly in early April.
"You know, we met, after the Fullerton weekend when we lost two of three," head coach Andrew Checketts said. "We met out by that sign as a group and just talked about some of the history of the program and some of the teams that have been behind or had to win a bunch of games at the end. We talked about the 21 (conference) wins in a row here in 2024 to win the conference and mapped it out and said you guys can do it, you're just going to have to almost win out and they did. They won nine straight league games after that, had a lot of belief, a lot of hard-fought battles, today was another one of those. We were down, you know, we hang the slider and we're down 3-0 and we're like, 'oh crap,' but we just kept fighting and fighting and fighting."
UCSB erased an early 3-0 deficit with a 4-run fifth inning. Jonathan Mendez hit a solo home run and senior Nate Vargas belted a 2-run shot later in the inning to tie the game at 3. For Vargas it's his team-leading 10h home run on the season. Rowan Kelly singled in William Vasseur to cap off the big inning with UCSB leading 4-3.
Senior Noah Karliner smashed his ninth home run on the season in the sixth inning to wrap up the scoring.
"(The home run) felt good because I've been missing a couple all weekend," Karliner said. "I think I was due for one and I finally got one for the boys. It was a big-time moment too, needed a couple of insurance runs and we got one, it's just been fun. The home run was awesome, but this team is built with guys that have each other's backs and I feel like that came to fruition this weekend, it was a great weekend and we just can't wait for next weekend."
Former Dos Pueblos High School standout Kellan Montgomery bounced back from a second inning 3-run homer by the Highlanders Esteban Sepulveda. The senior pitched 5.2 innings allowing just those three runs while striking out a career-high 9 as he improves to 8-3.
After the DP graduate exited, another local hurler, San Marcos alum Chase Hoover took the ball and delivered 2.2 innings of scoreless ball with 3 strikeouts.
(Hoover lowered is ERA for the season to 2.98. Entenza Design).
He allowed his only two hits in the top of the 9th inning and was lifted for freshman Josh Jannicelli who shut the door striking out the only two batters he faced to nail down his third save.
"Obviously it's awesome, it's my first year here and first year I'm part of the team," Jannicelli said. "We have a great team structure, good team chemistry, so makes it all the better, winning a game like this. It's been a crazy first season, obviously we're not done, but this is a nice point in the road."
UCSB goes 22-8 in Big West play and will enter the conference tournament with an overall record of 37-16.
The Gauchos first action in Irvine will be on Thursday at 1 p.m. against the winner of the Wednesday game between #4 Hawai'i and #5 Cal State Fullerton.
(Quotes provided by UCSB Athletics)
