SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The Big West announced its 2026 Men's Soccer award winners and All-Big West teams Friday morning, naming eight UC Santa Barbara student-athletes among the honorees. Star attackers Steinar Bjornsson and Kaden Standish earned All-Big West First Team selections, as did the two-way talent of Peleg Brown. Longtime defensive stalwart Drew Kamienski and newly arrived attacking dynamo Donovan Sessoms were both named to the All-Big West Second Team, and midfield anchor Ty Branigan was selected to the All-Rookie Team. Branigan also earned an All-Big West Honorable Mention, alongside Viggo Gustavsson and Owen Beninga. Across the course of the season, this elite eight have represented the best of Gaucho Soccer in 2026.
 
Starting at the back, it was always going to be Beninga in goal for Santa Barbara. The big, six-foot-four goalkeeper burst onto the scene in 2025 with shutouts in his first five matches and played every minute of the 2026 season, the only goalkeeper across Division I to do so. He continued to demonstrate his mastery of the air, using every inch of his imposing frame to not only snatch or punch away dangerous crosses but also to get down and stretch out for sprawling saves. He kept four clean sheets in 2026, though on three additional occasions — against Marshall, San Diego and Gonzaga — his only concession was from a penalty kick, all three of which he dove the correct direction for.
 
In front of Beninga, Gustavsson and Kamienski were the most-selected members of a Santa Barbara center back corps that weathered the storms of injury this season. Either in partnership with each other, Calle Mollerberg, Cole Harris or some three-man combination, Gustavsson and Kamienski grew to complement each other nearly perfectly, with one acting as the aggressive stopper, rushing to close down attackers or clear loose balls while the other played the out-and-out defender, the Gauchos' last line of resistance.
 
The center backs were helped by the impressively level head of the freshman Branigan, who took up the defensive midfield position directly in front of the Gaucho back line. Tasked with both intercepting opposing passes and playing productive ones of his own, the mop-haired 19-year-old started every game he was able to in 2026 and racked up the fourth-most minutes of Santa Barbara's outfield players, with fellow all-conference honorees Gustavsson and Kamienski two of the three ahead of him. His composure on the ball, the ability to control either a pass or interception, shrug off pressure and then find a teammate or dribble into space caught his fellow Gauchos' attention in preseason, then shone immediately on the field, at times bringing back shades of Manu Duah, who was selected first overall in 2024's Major League Soccer SuperDraft before he could pick up an All-Big West nod.
 
Out on the left wing, the Gauchos essentially had a new player in the returning Brown, who was an All-Freshman honoree in 2024 before missing the entire 2025 season. He came back with a vengeance in 2026, matching his career best with four assists and adding his first two collegiate goals. And all of this creative output as Santa Barbara's left back. The model of the modern wingback, Brown was responsible for covering the length of the pitch, doing so for the full 90 minutes in seven of the Gauchos' last eight matches. In his attacking capacity, he assisted game-tying goals against Marshall and at Grand Canyon, then helped set up the game-winning strike against San Diego State. Even better, he scored his first career goal against eventual Pac-12 champions Oregon State and fired home the opener against Utah Valley to help the Gauchos become the only Big West side to take points off of the Wolverines this season.
 
The man who assisted both of Brown's goals was Sessoms, a man who had spent the last two season setting The Big West alight with his finishing for Sacramento State. And while he did continue to provide a sting in front of goal, his arrival in Santa Barbara coincided with the revelation that his attacking talents extend to setting up goals for others. Sessoms led the Gauchos with five assists in 2026, and the four goals he put home himself were a welcome addition too. The senior's magnum opus in Blue and Gold came against Utah Valley, when he not only teed up Brown's long-range opener but went on to score two more in Santa Barbara's 3-2 win over the eventual Big West no. 1 seed.
 
It no doubt helped Sessoms unlock his creative potential that he was joined in the Gaucho attack by two more of The Big West's best scorers in 2026: Standish and Bjornsson. In fact, the three goals that Sessoms did not set up for Brown were among Bjornsson's 10 on the season, as the 2025 Big West Freshman of the Year experienced a sophomore surge. With a great ability to score from distance, Bjornsson spent 2026 scoring from just about anywhere and everywhere, against anyone and everyone. His catalog of goals includes second-half equalizers against then-No. 2 San Diego and then-No. 20 Cornell, plus a bolt from the blue to give the Gauchos their first win over Grand Canyon. He scored in the Blue-Green Rivalry too, finishing off a beautiful pass from Sessoms to score Santa Barbara's first of three goals as they got revenge on their arch rivals in front of men's college soccer's largest crowd of the season. It was actually Standish who had the pick of the goals against the Mustangs on Oct. 10 though, as he fired home on the volley to put the home side 3-0 up. Like Bjornsson, the senior from Danville assembled an impressive goals catalog in 2026, starting with Santa Barbara's first goal of the season: a long-range drive that bounced off the crossbar and down into the net against San Jose State. He added to that with the volley against the Mustangs, plus another long-range winner on the road at Rutgers. In his Senior Night against CSUN, he assisted twice and scored to give the Gauchos a crucial 3-2 win.
 
Santa Barbara and its eight All-Big West honorees (plus a few more key contributors like captains Calle Mollerberg and Kalle Rahbek) enter The Big West Championship next, going on the road in the conference tournament for the first time since 2023 to face UC Irvine in a semifinal match, kicking off at 6 p.m. on Nov. 7.