SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The UC Santa Barbara Baseball team (26-12, 12-6 Big West) returns home to Caesar Uyesaka Stadium this weekend, looking to fend off one of its closest challengers for first place in The Big West, Cal State Fullerton (19-20, 11-7). After their three-game set with the Titans, the Gauchos will host another college baseball titan, No. 1 UCLA (37-3, 21-0 Big Ten) on Tuesday night. Santa Barbara is the most recent of the three teams to beat the Bruins this season, handing them their only shutout loss of the year on April 14 in Westwood.
 
LAST TIME OUT
After their first series win over UC Irvine since 2022 over the weekend, the Gauchos have now won three weekend sets in a row and are tied atop The Big West standings as they return home. On Monday night, the offense ran rampant to out-slug California Baptist, 11-6, in Riverside as Santa Barbara has lost just twice in its last 12 games. Ace pitcher Jackson Flora may not have had his best stuff Friday night in Irvine, but he still recorded the 200^th strikeout of his career and the Gauchos made an early lead stick. It is perhaps no surprise that Flora is considered the top pitcher in his class considering his standards — the righty allowed two runs, only one of which was earned, and head coach Andrew Checketts still graded it "probably a D game." And despite that off night, Flora still leads the country in ERA, with a mark of 0.71.
 
Plus, it was a weekend for the offense anyway. Five different Gauchos hit .300 or better over the four-game road trip, led by Jonathan Mendez going 7-for-17 (.412). Liam Barrett, Corey Nunez and Colin Beazizo all homered, and Xavier Esquer drove in six runs on his four hits. Barrett added a pair of doubles to make three of his five hits extra-base ones, while Beazizo tallied a double and a triple in Santa Barbara's nationally televised, 8-4 win over the Anteaters on Sunday.
 
SCOUTING THE TITANS
Cal State Fullerton knows something about upsetting former Pac-12 powers too, having knocked off Oregon State in Corvallis on Friday behind a complete game from staff ace Mikiah Negrete. The lefty, whose 1.33 ERA is second in the country behind Flora, allowed just one unearned run on three hits in Corvallis Friday night, while striking out six. When he faced the Gauchos last year, Negrete went seven innings, allowing just two earned runs while striking out eight. He leads a pitching staff that ranks 13^th nationally in ERA, with right-handed underclassmen Bobby Mahoney and Dylan Smith rounding out the usual weekend rotation. The freshman Mahoney has a 3.37 ERA and has not allowed more than two earned runs in a game since the end of March. The sophomore Smith got roughed up to the tune of five earned runs in 1 2/3 innings on Sunday but pitched eight shutout frames the week before against Long Beach State.
 
With a solid offense to support its strong pitching staff, the Titans enter the weekend a game behind the Gauchos for first place in The Big West standings. In junior outfielder Paul Contreras, Fullerton has one of the biggest boppers in the conference. Contreras leads all qualified Titans with a .339 batting average and leads the team outright in on-base-plus-slugging percent, at 1.059. That second figure is largely thanks to his team-high eight home runs and the fact that he has walked more times (26) than he has struck out (21) this season. Senior infielder Nick Miller's .311 average makes it two qualified Titans hitting over .300 entering the weekend, and both he and Contreras are among the four hitters whose RBI totals sit somewhere between 19 and 22.
 
SCOUTING THE BRUINS
For No. 1 UCLA, last Tuesday's loss to the Gauchos appears hardly more than a bump in the road, as the Bruins got right back to winning ways over the weekend, sweeping Minnesota at home and handing Hawai'i a 12-7 loss on Tuesday night. They will host Sacramento State in non-conference action this coming weekend.
 
In their upset win down in Westwood earlier this month, the Gauchos' pitchers had to be nearly perfect, holding the entire Bruin lineup to just five hits — their third-lowest total of the season. And even then, it took a couple of diving catches from Santa Barbara outfielders Beazizo and Kelly to shut out a UCLA squad that averages just under nine runs a game. While it was hardly the only reason that the Gauchos won, it helped that they held star shortstop Roch Cholowsky, the presumptive first overall pick in this year's Major League Baseball Draft, hitless last time out. Cholowsky enters the weekend with a .329 average, good for just fourth on this juggernaut of an offense and 14 home runs. Will Gasparino, who Beazizo robbed of a two-out double last time, has 17 long balls on the year.
 
All of that faces the Gauchos, plus they will have to once again figure out a way to score runs. Santa Barbara got all the runs they needed last time against starter Angel Cervantes, who has pitched every Tuesday game for the Bruins since March 10, and has an ERA near six on the year. After he departed, the Gauchos then had to face Ian May (2.42 ERA), Justin Lee (2.13), Cal Randall (2.95 and a 101-mph fastball), Zach Strickland (3.42), Chris Grothues (3.97), Jack O'Connor (2.08) and Elai Iwanaga (2.45 ERA). That is five different relievers with ERAs under three. For context, Santa Barbara leads the nation in team ERA and has just four such bullpen arms with at least five innings of work. UCLA has two more that they did not even use in round one, Easton Hawk and Wylan Moss.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
First pitch times are set for 4:35, 3:05 and 1:05 p.m. in that order against the Titans April 24-26, with Tuesday evening's marquee matchup with the Bruins will begin at 4:35 p.m. General admission tickets for Tuesday's game are sold out, but fans can catch all the action by watching live on ESPN+. Limited availability remains for students only on gameday. Tickets for the weekend series against Cal State Fullerton are available at ucsbgauchos.com/tickets.