University of California, Santa Barbara

IRVINE, Calif. — Of all the days for everything to go wrong for the UC Santa Barbara Baseball team (38-18), Saturday was the worst possible. A calamitous first inning put the Gauchos in a hole they could never escape as a frustrating day ended in a 7-0 defeat to UC San Diego (26-27), ending Santa Barbara's run at The Big West Championship.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Things went south almost immediately. Two hit batters and a walk loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the first, then a sun-aided bloop single scored the first run of the game. The next batter smacked a line drive off of pitcher Kellan Montgomery's glove, and while he recovered and attempted to throw home, the throw sailed high, with two more runs scoring on the play. Confronted with a dribbling ground ball from the next batter, Montgomery made the fundamental play, looking the runner back to third base before tossing to first for the out. Only that lead runner still broke home and the throw back to the dish was wild, allowing not only the lead runner to cross home but also the trail runner to score from second. By the time the Gauchos got the third out, they were down, 5-0, having allowed just one hit and four unearned runs.
 
To Montgomery's significant credit, he did his part to keep Santa Barbara in the game, working efficient and clean, three-up-three-down innings in both the second and the third. But despite his bounce-back effort and despite Gaucho hitters putting bat to ball — Santa Barbara only struck out four times all game — nothing was finding the grass. After a leadoff single in the third, Corey Nunez was robbed of what looked to be a run-scoring double by a catch at the wall in center.
 
There was more bad news in the fourth, as UC San Diego turned a leadoff walk and hit batter into two more runs. The Gauchos had nearly escaped the inning, with Nick Husovsky making a backhanded stop and looking the runner back to third base on a hard-hit groundout for the second out, but a two-out single on an 0-2 count put the runs across anyway.
 
Santa Barbara's pitching and defense again bounced back and prevented any further damage, though it was no easy feat. A dropped fly ball and an ugly infield single were erased by a double play in the fifth, and the Tritons managed to steal second despite the Gauchos pitching out in the sixth. As if to confirm whose side luck was on, a local rabbit appeared in the UC San Diego bullpen in the bottom of the eighth, which the Tritons began with a walk.
 
On offense too, it was a day where if Santa Barbara wasn't having bad luck, they wouldn't have any kind of luck at all. Noah Karliner, who entered the day with 43 home runs in his NCAA career, smacked a high fly ball to left field, the direction the wind was blowing, only to see it die at the warning track as a flyout. In the seventh, the Gauchos grounded into a double play, despite both middle infielders being shifted to the left side of second base. And in the ninth, Nico Libed made a bid for his first collegiate homer as a pinch hitter, only to suffer the same fate as Karliner.
 
UP NEXT
Santa Barbara now must wait for its postseason fate to be determined by the NCAA Selection Committee. Both D1Baseball and Baseball America projected the Gauchos to be selected for the NCAA Tournament "no matter what" entering Saturday's action, but Santa Barbara's fate will only be known for sure come the Selection Show on Monday, May 25, which will be broadcast live on ESPN2 at 9 a.m. Pacific Time.