SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The No. 25 UC Santa Barbara Baseball team gave their newly re-surfaced Caesar Uyesaka Stadium the grandest of openings on Sunday, completing a three-game sweep of UConn with a 12-1 victory. In a well-rounded performance, Gaucho pitching, led by Ryan Gallagher, held the Huskies to just four hits while the Gaucho offense launched a season-high four home runs. Nick Oakley and Jonah Sebring's homers were each their first of the season, while Reiss Calvin's was his second of the week. Brendan Durfee rounded out the long-ball collection.
 
FROM HEAD COACH ANDREW CHECKETTS
"It was a big weekend for us, opening up at home, playing on the new surface, being back at home in front of our home crowd, and the guys showed up," Checketts said. "They showed up and played 27 innings that I thought were in-character except for a few spots here and there, but did a nice job putting pressure on them offensively and had three quality starts on the mound. I was pleased with the effort, performance and concentration."
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
In his first trip to Caesar Uyesaka Stadium's new mound, Gallagher was locked in and looked comfortable as if he had pitched from the new hill hundreds of times. The righty set down the Huskies in order in each of the first two innings, including a pair of punchouts to finish off the first. He picked up another K in the second, then worked around a one-out single to make it a third straight scoreless inning.
 
Not ones to be left out of the fun, the Gaucho offense made a dominant start as well, hanging four runs on the board with a big two-out rally in the first inning. Durfee was the first Gaucho to reach, knocking a single to left center, and Trimble joined him on base after being hit by a pitch. Jessada Brown's single scored Durfee, then Oakley drove his first home run of the season out of the right-field corner on a line, making it 4-0.
 
Santa Barbara tacked on a fifth run in the third thanks to some small ball, with Brown reaching on a perfect bunt down the third-base line to fill the bags with Gauchos. Oakley earned his fourth RBI of the game when the Husky third baseman failed to field his grounder, allowing Aaron Parker to score safely from third.
 
UConn finally got to Gallagher in the fourth, converting a walk and a double into a single run. Gallagher would only allow one more baserunner after that frame, a two-out single in the seventh.
 
By the time the Huskies got that hit, Gallagher had brought his strikeout total up to seven, and the Gauchos led, 9-1. They scored two runs in both the fourth and fifth innings, including a two-homer frame. Santa Barbara only needed one hit to score twice in the fourth, going single, hit-by-pitch, walk to lead off the inning. Trimble then earned an RBI the hard way, being hit by a pitch for the second time in the game. Later in the frame, Oakley picked up RBI number five with a line-drive sacrifice fly to deep center. In the bottom of the fourth, it was a one-out solo shot from Sebring to straightaway center and a two-out long ball from Durfee to right for the Gauchos.
 
Jackson Flora relieved Gallagher on the mound for the top of the eighth, and he entered with a 12-1 lead thanks to a three-run frame in the home half of the seventh. After Mendez and Sebring got aboard, Calvin launched a towering fly ball that cleared the fence in right-center field for a three-run homer.
 
Flora did have to work out of trouble to keep his cushion as big as it was, as UConn loaded the bases with two outs. A popup to Durfee ended the danger. Calvin Proskey took over for the top of the ninth, with Nick Putnam replacing Durfee behind the plate, and the Gauchos' new battery set down the Huskies in order to end the game.
 
FROM THE STUDENT-ATHLETES
Durfee on securing a first sweep of the year: "We had the opportunity in Oregon, didn't quite happen for us, so we were hungry to do it again today," Durfee said. "(We) had the opportunity and took advantage."
 
Durfee on Ryan Gallagher's performance: "Absolutely disgusting," Durfee said. "Gally's one of our dudes, he knew that going into it we needed a big performance out of him to get the sweep, executed all of his pitches, obviously got the seven guys behind us helping him out too, but overall, he was dominant."
 
BY THE NUMBERS

• Switch-hitter Reiss Calvin homered from both sides of the plate this week; his left-handed three-run shot Sunday was preceded by a monster two-run shot batting right-handed against Villanova on Tuesday.
• With this, their first series sweep of 2024, UC Santa Barbara moves into third in Division I with 13 regular-season sweeps since 2022. Only Tennessee and Texas State have more.
• Ryan Gallagher's quality start on Sunday was also his best start since an eight-inning, one-run outing in April 2022. The righty finished Sunday with a line of one earned run on three hits and one walk with seven strikeouts in seven innings of work and the win.
• Nick Oakley recorded his second five-RBI game of the season on Sunday. The first game in the Gauchos' season opener against Campbell. He joins Aaron Parker (Campbell Feb. 18 and UConn March 8) as the two Gauchos with multiple five-RBI games this year.

 
UP NEXT
UC Santa Barbara will remain at home next week, hosting UNLV on Tuesday, March 12 at 4:35 p.m. The Rebels will come to Santa Barbara looking to snap a five-game losing streak after being swept over the weekend. The game will be live on ESPN+ with live stats and an audio broadcast available through ucsbgauchos.com.