Oregon Takes Control of Santa Barbara Regional With 2-1 Victory Over UC Santa Barbara

An explosive UC Santa Barbara offense was silenced by the Oregon pitching staff as the Ducks took a major step towards winning the Santa Barbara Regional with a 2-1 victory over the Gauchos on Saturday night.

“It was a really hard-fought baseball game. Coach Checketts is a tremendous baseball coach, and his team is well prepared. It was a good one to be able to come out on top tonight,” said Oregon coach Mark Wasikowski.  “I was proud of the resiliency and toughness that our group showed once again against a really, really good UC Santa Barbara club.”

The Gauchos came into the top of the ninth inning trailing 2-0 and pushed one run across when pinch hitter Brendon Durfee was hit by a pitch with two outs and the bases loaded. The next batter, Ivan Brethowr, sent a weak ground ball to third base on the first pitch of his at bat and Carter Garate stepped on the bag to end the game.

UC Santa Barbara stranded nine runners on base and scored less than three runs for the first time this season.

“I have to give some credit to the guy on the mound. He’s pretty good. I think it starts there,” said UC Santa Barbara coach Andrew Checketts of his team’s offensive struggles. “We had plenty of chances early. We had some guys on base and just didn’t come through with that hit.”

Oregon starting pitcher Grayson Grinsell and UC Santa Barbara starting pitcher Tyler Bremner both delivered dominant performances. Grinsell tossed seven scoreless innings surrendering just three hits, while striking out nine. Bremner lasted 6.2 innings and allowed one run on seven hits with eight strikeouts.

“I thought I did a good job mixing in all my pitches. I feel like the change up was a good pitch for me today. I was able to throw it early and late,” Bremner said. “I kind of noticed they were a pretty aggressive team, being able to bounce off speed when needed was good and get those swings and misses and just keep them off balance with all three.”

Grinsell threw 114 pitches and Bremner threw 112 pitches. Ryan Featherston came on in relief of Grinsell and pitched out of trouble in the top of the ninth inning.

Oregon broke through for the first run of the game in the bottom of the seventh inning beginning with a one-out single up the middle by Justin Cassella. A key play in the ball game came when Cassella attempted to steal second base and was initially called out after on a nice throw by UC Santa Barbara catcher Aaron Parker. However, the close play weas overturned upon review.

Moments later Garate singled up the middle just beyond the diving attempt of Nick Oakley to give the Ducks a 1-0 lead.

Chase Meggers led off the bottom of the eighth inning with a double and eventually came around to score on a groundout to shortstop by Drew Smith.

The Gauchos got off to a strong start in the top of the ninth after Parker was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and Nick Oakley followed with a double to right field to put runners on second and third with no outs.

Justin Trimble walked in between strikeouts by Sebring and Mendez to load the bases to set the stage for the decisive sequence.

UC Santa Barbara was undefeated at home this season at 26-0 before Saturday’s loss to Oregon.

The Gauchos will now have to take the long route of winning three elimination games in two days in order to advance to the super regionals, beginning with a mathcup with University of San Diego on Sunday at noon. The winner will play Oregon at 6 p.m.

University of San Diego, 7; Fresno State, 5

Fresno State star third baseman Murf Gray came to the plate representing the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning, but that ray of hope quickly faded as he grounded into a season ending double play.

The University of San Diego survived the elimination game to fight again on Sunday, staving off the Bulldogs’ rally to capture a 7-5 victory on Saturday afternoon at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.

“Yeah, another tough fought college baseball game. Two days in a row,” said Fresno State coach Ryan Overland. “Obviously not the finish we’re looking for. But proud of these guys, proud of what they did last week, proud of what they did here the last two days. Honor every day to coach these guys.”

San Diego set the tone early with a two-run homer by Jakob Christian in the top of the first inning. It was his 25^th home run of the season and second of the regional. The Toreros put together a strong game overall offensively with eleven hits and four walks.

“Great response from our guys today, getting those 2 runs in the first inning, set that first punch if you will,” said University of San Diego coach Brock Ungricht.

The Toreros went on to extend their lead to 6-1 with three runs in the top of the fifth inning capped off by a double to left field by Jack Costello. However, Fresno State climbed back into the ball game behind a three-run homer by Gray in the bottom of the fifth inning cutting the deficit to 6-4.

“He’s been coming up some pretty big at bats when it’s mattered most the last couple weeks and not to mention the defense the third base that he’s played all year,” Overland said. “I got a pretty good view of Tommy Mendosa for a couple of years at third base Murf’s pretty close

Later in the inning Justin Stransky singled through the left side to bring home Tyler Davis and cut the Bulldogs’ deficit to 6-5.

San Diego received an exceptional performance from its bullpen as Vaughn Mauterer and Alex Schrier combined to hold Fresno State scoreless in four innings of relief. Schrier was in familiar territory after spending for years at UC Santa Barbara before transferring to University of San Diego.

“It was definitely a little weird at first coming back,” Schrier said. “But I think it’s a place where I’m really comfortably, which is awesome.”

Jack Gurevitch added an insurance run via a solo homerun in the top of the eighth inning to create the final margin of victory.