SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — It took 12 innings and over four and half hours, but the No. 25 UC Santa Barbara Baseball team knocked off Cal Poly, 11-10, and evened the 2024 Blue-Green Rivalry Series Saturday night. Tyler Bremner threw nearly 100 pitches in relief to earn the win, and after Jonah Sebring drove in what would prove to be the decisive run, Jackson Flora earned his third save of the season.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
It was a rollercoaster of a game that started with the Gauchos leading comfortably. Reiss Calvin's second-inning RBI single got Santa Barbara on the board first as starter Mike Gutierrez was cruising on the mound. After a 26-minute rain delay in the top of the third, the Gauchos broke the game wide open with a four-run fourth inning.
 
Jessada Brown led off the inning with his first double of the season, then Nick Oakley drove him home with an RBI single. Brendan Durfee joined the party later in the frame with a two-RBI single, scoring both Calvin and Oakley, then Ivan Brethowr drove in Durfee with a double, making it 5-0 Gauchos.
 
The first momentum swing came in the bottom of the fourth on literally a lucky bounce. A grounder up the middle kicked off the second base bag and away from the otherwise well positioned Oakley for Cal Poly's first hit of the night. The Mustangs loaded the bases that inning, but Brethowr made a great sliding catch in foul territory to end the inning before any damage could occur.
 
The hosts did get on the board the next inning, putting up three runs in their half of the fifth. Santa Barbara got a run back in the top of the sixth off of Brethowr's RBI groundout, but the Mustangs erupted for five runs in the bottom of the frame to take the lead, 8-6.  
 
But there was no shortage of drama on Saturday, as the Gauchos immediately re-took the lead in the top of the seventh. Brown got the rally started with his second double of the game, and after the Gauchos loaded the bases, Zander Darby's sacrifice fly scored Brown. The next man up, Aaron Parker lined a two-RBI double just inside the third-base bag, giving Santa Barbara a 9-8 lead.
 
Tyler Bremner had relieved Gutierrez in the sixth and surrendered three of those five runs, but after Parker game him a lead to protect, the sophomore righty settled in. He worked around a lead-off single in the seventh set the side down in order in the eighth, but the Mustangs got a run to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth on a sacrifice fly. Bremner did manage to leave runners on the corners and force extra innings.
 
Neither offense managed to do much in the first two additional frames, with Bremner and his opposite number each striking out the side in the 10^th. Santa Barbara put two men on the bases in the 11^th but left them there, and Bremner had to once again escape a bases-loaded jam in the bottom half of the frame, but he did.
 
The Gauchos finally got back on the board in the top of the 12^th, as Mustang-killer Oakley led off with a single. LeTrey McCollum, who had come in as a defensive replacement in the ninth, bunted Oakley over to second, and Durfee doubled him home. Sebring, also a ninth-inning defensive replacement, then gave the Gauchos a crucial insurance run with an RBI single, making it 11-9.
 
Flora was summoned to get the save, and despite shredding what was left of Gaucho fans' nerves, he did it. The rookie righty hit the first two batters he faced, the first of whom would come around to score on a ball that ate up Jonathan Mendez at short. Mendez got a chance at redemption on the very next batter and took it, firing a throw to first just in time for the final out of the game.
 
BY THE NUMBERS

• Brendan Durfee recorded a career-high five hits on Saturday, a feat only possible thanks to a relatively new rule. When Durfee took a knee to the head diving back to first base, he left the game to be evaluated for a concussion, which would normally rule him out of the rest of the contest. However, since the 2021 season, baseball players are allowed to leave the game for a concussion evaluation and return if cleared. Skyler Chang pinch-ran for Durfee and then made way for him to return behind the plate.
• Nick Oakley's fourth-inning RBI was the 12^th against the Mustangs of his career and his team-leading 21^st of the year. He is now one away from tying his single-season career high.
• Throwing 97 pitches over six innings of relief, Tyler Bremner did the work of a starter Saturday night, matching the longest outings of his career. The righty went six innings twice last year, both in starts.
• At an official duration of four hours and 12 minutes, Saturday's game is the longest the Gauchos have played since going for five hours and 20 minutes against Hawai'i on April 3, 2022. Saturday's official duration does not include the 26-minute rain delay in the third inning.

 
UP NEXT
The Gauchos and Mustangs will play the rubber match of this three-game series on Sunday, March 24 at 1 p.m. from Baggett Stadium. The game will be live on ESPN+ with live stats and an audio broadcast available through ucsbgauchos.com.