LOS ANGELES — The UC Santa Barbara Baseball team (23-11) walked into Jackie Robinson Stadium Tuesday night, donned their capes, and walked out with a 4-0 upset of No. 1 UCLA (33-3), ending the Bruins' 27-game win streak and shutting them out for the first time since the 2025 Big Ten Championship. The Gauchos got just about everything right. The pitching staff of Calvin Proskey, AJ Krodel and Cole Tryba allowed just five hits and escaped a pair of bases-loaded jams. One of those Houdini acts was thanks to the heroics of Colin Beazizo, who's diving catch in left field was one of a handful of great defensive plays Santa Barbara turned behind their men on the mound. And Beazizo did it with the bat too, providing a late insurance run with an RBI single in the eighth. His outfield neighbor, Rowan Kelly, also made a diving catch and drove in a pair of runs, while scoring one himself.
 
QUOTABLE
From head coach Andrew Checketts: "Midweeks are different — I don't want to downplay it, our guys did a really good job — midweeks are obviously different than weekends," Checketts said. "You see a lot of upsets that happen, but our guys played well and that's a good team. I think we've got a good team, and it's not very often you get to play the number-one ranked team in the country at their place and win.
 
You know, that's two-and-a-half center fielders there in the outfield with Rowan, Beazizo a center fielder as well, (Liam) Barrett was a center fielder before he got here; he's probably a step behind those guys but that's our best defensive outfield out there. Three good left-handed bats, so when those guys are healthy and doing their thing, they really make us better."
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Proskey, making just his second start of the season, found himself in a tough spot against the formidable top of the Bruin order in the bottom of the first, despite a helping hand from an obstruction call that gave the Gauchos a double play after an infield single and hit batter. A couple of walks later, the bases were loaded and Proskey watched a 111-mph line drive scream towards the left field corner. But Beazizo, playing his first game in a week and a half, was also screaming toward that corner and laid out to make a diving catch. Inning over, no runs surrendered.
 
Proskey did some good work with the glove to get through the Bruins in order in the second, then watched his offense break through in the third. Cole Kosciusko's infield single and Xavier Esquer's double just inside the third-base bag set the table for Kelly, who punched a bloop single into left center, scoring what would prove to be the winning runs.
 
But there was a long way to go to make those runs the winners, a fact the Gauchos were reminded of when UCLA led off both the third and fourth innings with moonshots that went narrowly foul down the right field line. Proskey allowed just a hit batter in that third, then Krodel relieved him and was perfect in the fourth. After a perfect fifth, Krodel started off the sixth inning by striking out presumptive first overall Major League Draft pick Roch Cholowsky, then finished the sixth with two more punchouts to strand a one-out single.
 
Meanwhile, Santa Barbara's bats were battling with the Bruins' formidable bullpen, and although they faced fastballs as fast as 101 mph in the top of the seventh, they nearly scratched another run across. Jonathan Mendez was able to turn around a 99-mph fastball for a single to the opposite field, and two walks ahead of him meant the bases were loaded, but they would ultimately stay that way.
 
After the crowd stretched, it was UCLA's turn to leave the bases loaded. Krodel allowed a lead-off single but got the first out of the inning before his night ended, with Tryba asked to get the last eight. His effort could have started better. He countered a hit batter with a strikeout, but an infield single loaded the bases and brought Cholowsky to bat. The matchup brought the fans to their feet, and the result was emphatic. Tryba struck out the Bruins' superstar looking on four pitches to end the threat.
 
Starting the eighth on offense, the Gauchos capitalized on the momentum. Kelly put another single into left center, and Liam Barrett did his job by bunting Kelly over to second. William Vasseur continued to show his ability to go the other way, driving an opposite-field double into the right field corner to score Kelly. After a Nate Vargas walk, Corey Nunez was robbed of a hit by some slick fielding, but Beazizo once again came up big, punching an RBI single through the left side to extend Santa Barbara's lead to 4-0.
 
UCLA started its half of the eighth with a soft single over Esquer's head at third base, but that would be the last Bruin baserunner of the night. Tryba struck out two in the eighth and one more in the ninth before a pair of flyouts put an end to things.
 
The win is Santa Barbara's first over the nation's No. 1 team since March 3, 2020, when they beat UCLA, 8-5, at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium. Former Gaucho left fielder and current Director of Player Development, Christian Kirtley, went 3-for-4 with an RBI double in that win.
 
UP NEXT
Santa Barbara concludes this five-game road stretch with four games in as many days at the weekend. First up, the Gauchos will visit UC Irvine, April 17-19, then immediately head to Riverside for a single game against another formidable foe, California Baptist, on April 20.