IRVINE, Calif. — It was hardly a straight path, but the UC Santa Barbara Baseball team (37-16, 22-8 Big West) is where they expected to be at the beginning of the season: top of the pile in The Big West and the no. 1 seed for the conference tournament. On Tuesday, the conference honored 11 of the men who helped them get there, with head coach Andrew Checketts named The Big West Co-Coach of the Year and ace right-hander Jackson Flora named The Big West Pitcher of the Year. Flora is one of three All-Big West First Team members in Santa Barbara, joined by second baseman William Vasseur and outfielder Rowan Kelly. Catcher Nate Vargas and shortstop Corey Nunez were named to the All-Big West Second Team, as were Santa Barbara natives Kellan Montgomery and Chase Hoover. Pitchers Nathan Aceves and Cole Tryba earned All-Big West Honorable Mention, alongside outfielder Liam Barrett.
 
The newly well-decorated Gauchos will open their Big West Championship pursuit on Thursday, May 21 at 1 p.m. against either no. 4 seed Hawai'i or no. 5 seed Cal State Fullerton, who will meet in a single-elimination play-in game on Wednesday, with the winner moving on to face Santa Barbara.
 
ALL-BIG WEST HONOREES
For leading his team to the conference's top seed, Checketts earned his fourth career Big West Coach of the Year honor, this time sharing the award with his counterpart in San Luis Obispo, Larry Lee. Checketts, already UC Santa Barbara Baseball's leader in career wins and career winning percentage, surpassed 500 wins leading the Gauchos this season and has his team in a position to reach the NCAA Tournament for a 16^th time. A big part of his success? The young man he has sent to the mound to open each of Santa Barbara's 14 series this season: The Big West Pitcher of the Year, Flora. The flame-throwing righty was lauded as the top pitcher in this year's Major League Baseball Draft class even before the season began, but he has spent the last 14 weeks backing up that claim. With an ERA of 1.03, Flora leads all qualified Division I pitchers and is on track to set the Gauchos' new single-season D-I ERA record. He is the crown jewel in a Santa Barbara pitching staff that ranks fourth nationally in team ERA and seventh in both hits allowed per nine innings and WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched).
 
Joining Flora on the All-Big West First Team are the top two hitters in the Gaucho offense that has supported that elite pitching staff: Vasseur and Kelly. For Kelly, 2026 has been confirmation that his stellar 2025, when he hit .355 in 29 starts, was not a fluke. The sophomore has started every game for the Gauchos this season and is hitting .348 while adding power with his first three collegiate home runs. He is the team's top RBI man and run-scorer, with 41 and 51 respectively. His 12 stolen bases also lead the squad. Vasseur, a newcomer, has made the second base position his own with excellent bat-to-ball skills and a knack for clutch hitting. The Memphis transfer is hitting .322 on the season and is the team's top bunter, with 10 sacrifices laid down. He can find the gaps too, with his 10 doubles second on the team.
 
Next to Vasseur in the infield and also making his first appearance on an All-Big West team is Nunez, an elite defensive shortstop whose breakout year at the plate earned him a spot on the all-conference second team. The senior's .300 average, .385 on-base percentage and .429 slugging percentage are all comfortably career highs, as are his five stolen bases. The Gauchos' other second-team hitter, Vargas, was an all-conference honorable mention last season but has finished this campaign as one of the hottest hitters in The Big West. Six of his team-leading 10 home runs have come in the last month, including one in each game of Santa Barbara's sweep of UC Riverside to secure the conference regular-season crown. Plus, the senior has managed the Gauchos' pitching staff brilliantly, catching in 37 of his 38 starts this year. On Sundays, that has meant catching fellow second-team honoree Montgomery. After transferring to his hometown team for his senior season, the Santa Barbara native has been a workhorse for the Gauchos, pitching more innings than anyone but Flora. He matched his career high in strikeouts twice this season, including a vintage outing of eight innings and those nine K's against UC San Diego on Apr. 12. Montgomery's homecoming also reunited him with childhood friend and rival and now fellow All-Big West Second Team pitcher Hoover. The left-hander out of San Marcos High School is enjoying the best season of his collegiate career as one of the firemen in the Gauchos' bullpen, especially lately. In the last month, Hoover has allowed just one run over 17 innings across seven games, and that was against No. 1 UCLA. He also has a career-best 53 strikeouts.
 
And yet, Hoover is not the Gauchos' only elite left-handed relief option. Tryba's season was shortened by an injury, but since he was activated in mid-March, he has fired 52 strikeouts en route to an All-Big West Honorable Mention. Only Hoover has thrown more relief innings than Tryba for Santa Barbara this season, and the two lefties are tied for the team lead with four saves each. Rounding out the Gauchos' All-Big West pitching corps for 2026 is the right-hander Aceves, who finished the regular season as one of the six toughest pitchers to hit in the conference. The sophomore showed just how good his stuff can be in a commanding February outing against Utah, allowing just one hit over 6 1/3 innings while striking out a career-high 10 Utes. He finished the regular season with 63 K's and a .229 batting average against. Last but certainly not least, likely the only thing keeping Barrett from a second or even first-team selection is his slow start to the season. But, once he broke into the Gauchos' everyday lineup in early April, the sophomore has been irreplaceable and made the leadoff spot his own. In 99 at-bats, Barrett is batting .333 with an OPS of .969. His eight doubles rank third on the team, and he owns the impressive distinction of having more walks than strikeouts.
 
HOW THE GAUCHOS GOT HERE
Santa Barbara put the college baseball world on notice by upsetting then-no. 20 Southern Miss on opening day — the Golden Eagles' first opening-day loss since 2014 — and they stayed hot with sweeps of Portland, Utah and Long Beach State. The Gauchos scuffled through March, dropping series to UC Davis, Hawai'i and then-no. 20 Oregon, but responded by sweeping rivals Cal Poly to begin April, powered by Flora's first of two shutouts on the season. They took two of three from UC San Diego, shut out UCLA in Westwood, then won a series at UC Irvine for the first time since 2022. An underwhelming stretch of three losses to Cal State Fullerton and UCLA only served to lock the Gauchos back in, as Santa Barbara won 10 of its final 11 regular-season games to secure The Big West Regular Season Championship and the top seed for this weekend's conference tournament.
 
SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
Cal Poly (33-21, 22-8 Big West) earned a share of the conference regular-season title alongside the Gauchos but were relegated to the no. 2 seed for this weekend thanks to Santa Barbara's sweep of the Blue-Green Rivalry series in April. However, since the Gauchos swept them, the Mustangs have lost just three conference games, thanks in large part to their potent offense. Cal Poly has the best batting average in the conference, hitting .307 as a team. Their leading hitter, catcher Ryan Tayman, was named The Big West Co-Field Player of the Year after batting .351 with an on-base-plus-slugging percentage (OPS) of 1.116, which is about the same as Barry Bonds' OPS as a San Francisco Giant. The Mustangs also have The Big West Defensive Player of the Year, Casey Murray Jr. in center field.
 
UC San Diego (24-26, 18-12 Big West) will be making its first Big West postseason appearance this year and, like Cal Poly, is led by its offense. No team has hit more than the Tritons' 41 home runs in conference games this season, and All-Big West First Team first baseman Gabe Camacho is tied with Field Player of the Year Tayman at 16 long balls on the year. UC San Diego gave the Gauchos fits when they visited Caesar Uyesaka Stadium during the regular season, with Steele Murdock's 17 strikeouts leading to a 4-3 Friday win and Santa Barbara needing late rallies to win Saturday and Sunday. Since then, the Tritons do have some alarming losses on their resume, most notably being swept by Long Beach State. Should they meet the Tritons, the Gauchos will look to keep their big boppers quiet and punish a pitching staff whose 6.50 ERA is the worst in the tournament field by nearly two full points.
 
Hawai'i (27-22, 16-14 Big West) has likely the only pitching staff in the conference that can rival Santa Barbara's, led by the only pitcher who could rival Flora in All-Big West First Team honoree and reigning Big West Pitcher of the Week Isaiah Magdaleno. Magdaleno has allowed just one run over his last three outings while pitching 26 of the 27 innings across those three games, with two complete game shutouts. He held the Gauchos to just one run when the teams met in March. He is set to start the Rainbow Warriors' Wednesday play-in game against Cal State Fullerton, but Santa Barbara also only managed one run against Hawai'i's second starter, Hekili Robello, who was named to the all-conference second team, back in March. This potential first-round matchup likely comes down to which offense can better solve the opponent's pitching staff and which team can capitalize on any mistakes.
 
Cal State Fullerton (23-30, 15-15 Big West) snuck into the tournament with a win on the final day of the regular season and will need to get past a Hawai'i team that beat them in two out of three meetings earlier in the year to face the Gauchos, but the Titans are one of the three Big West squads that won their series against Santa Barbara. Like the Warriors, the Titans are scheduled to throw their ace, All-Big West First Team left-hander Mikiah Negrete, in Wednesday's play-in game, though this time the Gauchos may prefer they save Negrete for a potential first-round matchup. Santa Barbara hung six runs on the lefty when they met in April, though they also had little trouble against the Titans' second starter, All-Big West Honorable Mention Bobby Mahoney. The Gauchos scored four runs in just three innings against Mahoney in April, but the trouble was keeping up with the Titans' offense. Fullerton is led by junior outfielder and Big West Co-Field Player of the Year Paul Contreras and his .364 batting average, 1.128 OPS and 14 home runs.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
Santa Barbara's first game of The Big West Championship, against the winner of Hawai'i and Cal State Fullerton, will begin at 1 p.m. from Anteater Ballpark on the campus of UC Irvine on Thursday, May 21. With a win, the Gauchos will play next at 1 p.m. on Friday, May 22. With a loss, Santa Barbara will have to begin a run of elimination games at 6 p.m. on May 22. All of this weekend's games will be broadcast live on ESPN+ with live stats and a free, audio-only broadcast available through ucsbgauchos.com.