SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Jackson Flora is the king of the Central Coast. For the second year in a row, UC Santa Barbara Baseball's flame-throwing right-hander shut out the Gauchos' (17-10, 6-4 Big West) arch-rival Cal Poly Mustangs (17-11, 8-3 Big West) for a full nine innings, collecting nine strikeouts in a Santa Barbara victory. Last year, it was a 4-0 scoreline in a Sunday series finale. This year, a 6-0 scoreline to open the weekend.
 
While Flora takes the headlines (and his sixth win of the year), the offense deserves some pats on the back for a performance that helped bury the Mustangs early. The bottom seven hitters of the Gaucho lineup all tallied at least one hit, with Nico Libed smacking a pair. Flora's battery-mate also had one of four Gaucho doubles on the night, a two-run variety as part of Santa Barbara's five-score fourth inning.
 
As for Flora, Cal Poly will be thrilled to see him get selected as part of this summer's Major League Baseball Draft class, where he currently ranks as the top collegiate pitching prospect. In three appearances (two starts) against the Mustangs across his three years in Santa Barbara, Flora has pitched 19 innings, allowed zero earned runs, just five hits and three walks, while striking out 19 batters. Just this season, Thursday's shutout made it 34 consecutive innings without allowing a run for Flora, the first streak of even 20 clean frames in a row by a Gaucho since at least 2016. The righty's ERA drops to 0.69 on the season, good for third in the country. The two arms ahead of him, USC's Mason Edwards and UCF's Matt Sauser are both scheduled to pitch against ranked opponents (No. 1 UCLA and No. 23 West Virginia, respectively) on Friday.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Facing an offense that entered the weekend as the best in The Big West, Flora's night was less cruising up the coast and more applying the pedal firmly to the floor. He faced tricky situations in the second and third, both thanks to Mustang doubles, but he handled both. The second ended with a pair of groundouts, and after Rowan Kelly did just enough to keep a one-out single from turning into the first run of the game on a two-out double in the third, Flora ended that inning with a wicked slider. He delivered a shutdown inning with a pair of flyouts and a groundout after the Gauchos' big fourth inning, then shrugged off another double in the bottom of the fifth, getting a punchout to end the threat. The big righty finally engaged cruise control in the sixth, his first perfect inning of the game. In fact, that lead-off double that he worked around in the fifth was the last baserunner the Mustangs would get on the night, as Flora retired the final 15 Cal Poly hitters he faced, including striking out the side in the ninth.
 
But by the time Flora was hitting his stride in the sixth, some observers had already declared the game over thanks to Santa Barbara's five-run fourth inning. It was a crucial breakout frame for a Gaucho lineup that had only put one man aboard through the first three, and started with Nick Husovsky's one-out single back up the middle on a full count. Xavier Esquer turned around the very next pitch for a double to put both himself and Husovsky in scoring position. Two pitches later, Cole Kosciusko's single back up the middle brought them both home. Noah Karliner jumped on the very next pitch to keep things rolling with another double to the right-center gap, re-setting Gauchos in scoring position for Libed. He drove a 3-1 pitch deep to the left field corner to make it three doubles in the inning, and a 4-0 lead for Santa Barbara. Corey Nunez worked a walk, and that was it for Cal Poly's starter. Their reliever could not do much better though, as both Ryan Severns and Rowan Kelly worked walks of their own to force home the fifth run of the frame.
 
That would be more than plenty for Flora, but Libed and Nunez combined to give their pitcher another run of cushion in the eighth. Libed's two-out single kept the inning alive for Nunez, and the Gaucho catcher got an extra 90 feet when Cal Poly was called for a balk. The very next pitch, Nunez drove a double into the right field corner, allowing Libed to trot home and make the score 6-0, as it finished.
 
UP NEXT
Santa Barbara, which handed the Mustangs their first Big West series loss of the season last year, has the opportunity to give their rivals their first conference series loss of this season on Friday, when the Gauchos return to Baggett Stadium for the second game of the weekend at 6 p.m. Nathan Aceves, who held Oregon's formidable offense to just two runs on Saturday, will toe the rubber for Santa Barbara. Fans can catch all the action live on ESPN+ or by following along with live stats and a free, audio-only broadcast through ucsbgauchos.com.