University of California, Santa Barbara

IRVINE, Calif. — The UC Santa Barbara Baseball team (38-17) will have to do things the hard way after dropping their winner's-bracket matchup with Cal Poly (35-21) on Friday, 4-2. The Gauchos now must win three consecutive elimination games to claim The Big West Championship and its automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament, with the first of those three tests set for Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m.
 
QUOTABLE
From head coach Andrew Checketts: "The debrief will be go get them tomorrow, shower this one off and get ready to go," Checketts said. "It's a group that's been through it, they've been through some hard times, they've struggled and had to bounce back, so the goal is to go out, play aggressive and play our brand of baseball, get a response.
 
We got the big hits at their place, their bullpen came in and threw strikes today, when we were at their place last time, they gave us a few baserunners and we capitalized on it. They got the hits when it mattered and we didn't."
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Santa Barbara struck first and did so without the benefit of a hit, with two walks and a hit batter loading the bases for William Vasseur, who walked to force in the opening run. But the Gauchos missed an opportunity for more runs in that first inning, with a double play holding them to just the lone score.
 
It was a run that the Mustangs got back in the top of the second, a double and a single setting up a sacrifice bunt to tie the game. It was one of only two occasions that Santa Barbara starter Calvin Proskey could not navigate the traffic that he managed for 5 1/3 innings on Friday, a strong effort against an offense that entered the day averaging just shy of seven runs a game. Proskey had stranded two Mustangs in the first and stranded another in a scoreless third, while picking up his first strikeout of the day against The Big West Co-Field Player of the Year. Proskey stranded two more Cal Poly runners aboard in a scoreless fourth and gave up just a two-out single in the fifth. He got his final out by way of the K after a leadoff single in the sixth, but his day was done then and the Gauchos could not keep that inherited runner from touching the plate.
 
That sixth-inning run erased the slender lead that Noah Karliner had given Santa Barbara in the bottom of the fourth, when two two-out walks set the slugger up to punch an RBI single back up the middle for a 2-1 lead. The Gauchos loaded the bases again after Liam Barrett was hit by a pitch but again, they left the inning with just the one run.
 
The 2-2 tie turned into a 3-2 deficit after an unearned run in the seventh and a 4-2 margin after a leadoff double and RBI single in the eighth. Santa Barbara had left a runner on third with one out in their half of the second and, after AJ Krodel struck out the side in the top of the ninth, brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth but could not force extra innings.
 
UP NEXT
The Gauchos' first foe in their elimination-game gauntlet will be either no. 3 seed UC San Diego or no. 5 seed Cal State Fullerton, with the Tritons and Titans playing an elimination game Friday night. Should Santa Barbara win their 1 p.m. meeting with one of those two squads, they will need to defeat no. 2 seed Cal Poly in a 6 p.m. game Saturday night to stay alive and force a decisive winner-take-all game on Sunday.