UPDATE: This article was updated on Oct. 21 to reflect the rescheduling of UC Santa Barbara's game against California Baptist to Oct. 27

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The UC Santa Barbara Men's Soccer team enters the final two weeks of its season in some of its best form of the season after a perfect road trip last week. After their meeting with California Baptist was bumped back six days due to bad weather, the Gauchos will head to Orange County and face UC Irvine in a Big West match with massive postseason implications on Saturday night before finishing their season with two matches at home, the first of which being their rescheduled meeting with the Lancers on Tuesday night. Saturday's postseason repercussions are rather straightforward: a loss in that match would deny the Gauchos any shot of hosting a Big West Semifinal, whereas a win would guarantee that Santa Barbara would host at least once in the conference tournament.
  
PROMOTIONS
Chick-fil-A is a proud partner of UC Santa Barbara Athletics and the presenting sponsor of Tuesday night's match. Chick-fil-A will be giving away a free menu item to fans in attendance at Harder Stadium.

TICKETS
Tickets for Tuesday night's match are available at ucsbgauchos.com/tickets. Tickets purchased for Gauchos versus Lancers prior to that game's rescheduling will be valid for admission on Tuesday night. UC Santa Barbara students get into Tuesday's game and all Gaucho home games for free with their valid UCSB ID card.
 
LAST TIME OUT
Santa Barbara returns home having won back-to-back road matches last week, both by 2-1 margins, and is now unbeaten in its last six games. Over their last three matches, all wins, the Gauchos have done all their scoring in the first half — three against Cal Poly, two to come from behind against Gonzaga and two both from Steinar Bjornsson against Cal State Fullerton in the most recent action. Bjornsson now leads The Big West and ranks 20^th nationally with eight goals on the season, with four of those coming in the last month. Kaden Standish continued to heat back up on the road trip too; after scoring his first goal in nearly a month against Cal Poly, he scored and assisted against Gonzaga, then assisted again in Fullerton. Jack Middleton was on the receiving end of Standish's helper to tally his first career goal in Spokane on Wednesday night, and the former walk-on registered his first assist against an opponent not named Cal Poly on Santa Barbara's opening goal in Titan Stadium on Saturday.
 
SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS
California Baptist would have jumped Oregon State and entered this week as the outright Pac-12 leaders if not for a somewhat perplexing home draw against San Diego State on Saturday night. The Lancers out-shot the Aztecs, 15-1, but only put two of those shots on target and neither went in as CBU was shut out for the first time all season. While putting up a donut is relatively uncharacteristic for this Lancers offense — CBU ranks just outside the top 60 nationally with an average of 1.79 goals per game — holding their opponent scoreless is not. The Lancers have shut out more than half of their opponents this season and have the fourth-best shutout percentage in the country, contributing to a goals-against average under one.
 
When it comes to putting the ball in the net for CBU, no Lancer is more involved than forward Blake D'Agostino, who has seven goals and five assists on the season. Fellow forward Justin Ojo is right behind him in the goals category with six, three of which came in the same game at Gonzaga earlier this month. The Lancers will play their final Pac-12 contest of the year on Saturday night at UC San Diego before coming to visit the Gauchos. 
 
UC Irvine sits in second in The Big West standings, two points ahead of the Gauchos but with one fewer match to play; Saturday's contest at Anteater Stadium will be the hosts' final chance to earn points towards their conference placement this year. Santa Barbara won on its last visit to Irvine, in 2024, but that was its first victory at Anteater Stadium since 2015. It has simply been a tough place for the Gauchos to win, historically. This year, four of the Anteaters' eight wins have come at home, but so have four of their five losses. Irvine will host Cal Poly on Wednesday night before the Gauchos come to town.
 
UC Irvine has scorers up and down the stat-sheet, with 17 different Anteaters recording at least one goal or assist this season. By comparison, the Gauchos have 11. The leader of Irvine's attack is current Big West Offensive Player of the Week Gage Lyons, with seven goals and four assists on the season. He scored the only goal in a Wednesday night win over San Diego State and scored and assisted in Saturday's 3-1 win at Sacramento State. His teammates Gustavo Gonzalez and Pierce Rizzo were also named The Big West Defensive Player and Rookie of the Week, respectively.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
Wednesday night's match against CBU will kick off at 7 p.m. from Harder Stadium, while Saturday's action at Anteater Stadium in Irvine is slated to begin at 6 p.m. Both matches will be broadcast live on ESPN+ with live stats available through ucsbgauchos.com.