SANTA BARBARA, Calif.- UC Santa Barbara (3-2) came up big Thursday afternoon beating No. 44 St. Mary's College (3-3) 4-3. 

St. Mary's were fresh off of a 6-1 win over Cal Poly on Wednesday, but the Gauchos proved to be too much to handle.

The ladies kicked off the day with doubles. UCSB came away with the first doubles win as Jaimee Gilbertson and Lou Adler defeated Danielle Flores and Mary-Anne Jessup 6-4 at the number two position. SMC grabbed the next doubles match as the Gaels' duo of Jamie Pawid and Kareena Manji defeated Natalie Da Silveira and Melissa Baker 6-2 at number three.

That left the doubles point up for grabs with one last doubles match left to play. SMC came away with the doubles point as Parminder Kaur and Jana McCord defeated April Scatliffe and Priscila Garcia 6-4 at number one doubles.

UC Santa Barbara was forced to go into singles already trailing 0-1. But the ladies in blue had some fight in them.

Scatliffe was the first match off, playing number three. She faced #123 Catherine Leduc and Leduc took the win by a score of 6-1, 6-4. 

Gilbertson, playing number two, was able to bring the Gauchos back within one , after a three set thriller. Gilbertson fell in the first match 2-6, but came storming back to take the next two sets 6-0 and 6-0. 

Gilbertson attributes her big comeback to her attitude. 

"I wasn't playing my very best," she said. "But I flipped my attitude, and I was able to mentally take over."

SMC was able to take the next match as Melissa Baker fell to #94 Manji 6-4, 6-4 at the number five spot. 

Adler was able to keep the Gauchos in the match by defeating #32 Flores at the number one postion in three sets by a score of 2-6, 6-3, 6-2.

This left the dual match score at 3-2 in favor of the Gaels with two matches left to play. 

Stacy Yam came in to play number six for the Gauchos and was in for a battle against Kaur. Kaur was 5-0 in singles going into the match, and wasn't ready to end her unbeaten streak.

Yam was up 5-0 in the first set, with victory in her sights, just to have Kaur comeback to bring the set to 5-5. However, Yam held on for a 7-5 first set win.

In the second set, Kaur gained momentum and evened the match, winning 6-3.

The third set and the dual match was on the line. Yam settled in, and with her teammates cheering her on, was able to take down Kaur by an overall score of 7-5, 3-6, 6-2.

The last match was going to be the deciding overall point. This match was played at the number four spot between Da Silveira and Pawid. 

Pawid snagged the first set, winning 6-3. In the second, the two kept it close, ending up at a 6-6 tie in which Da Silveira took the tie breaker 8-6.

It was up to the third and final set.

Da Silveira fell behind early, but was able to come back to make it 3-2. Pawid gained some momentum and regained the lead at 4-3 just to gave Da Silveira steal it back at 5-4. Freshman Da Silveira was able to come up big for the Gauchos and win that third set 6-4. The final score of the match was Da Silveira winning 3-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-4.

The Gauchos won the match 4-3.

Head coach Simon Thibodeau was proud of the way his girls played to win against this ranked team. 

"We're building a good UCSB tennis team," he said. "We still need to improve a lot, but this win was a good step forward in the process."

"They may have been the better ranked players," Gilbertson said. "But we have a mych better attitude. We are always cheering each other on and that's the important part of college tennis."

UCSB will be playing at home on Feburary 14th against San Jose State University at 10:30AM on the Roberston Gym courts.

UC Santa Barbara 4, #44 Saint Mary's College 3
Feb 05, 2015 at Santa Barbara, Calif. (UC Santa Barbara)