SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The American Baseball Coaches Association named UC Santa Barbara's Jackson Flora the 2026 ABCA/Rawlings NCAA Division I National Pitcher of the Year on Monday, the third organization to hail the Gauchos' right-handed ace as the top arm in the country this season.
 
Santa Barbara Head Coach Andrew Checketts spent the season singing his Friday starter's praises, saying "I was joking in the dugout that I'm a pretty good coach when he pitches and a lot of the stuff that I call works when he pitches," after the Gauchos' Big West Championship-opening win in May. Clearly, Checkett's peers agree. The National Pitcher of the Year is selected by the ABCA's All-America Committee, a panel of nine coaches from across the ABCA's eight regions, which previously named Flora to the ABCA/Rawlings All-America First Team. Earlier this awards season, Perfect Game and the College Baseball Foundation both also picked Flora as their National Pitcher of the Year.
 
Flora's stats jump off the page, none as much as his nation-leading 1.06 ERA. His 133 strikeouts, UC Santa Barbara's single-season record, were also good for third through 16 weeks' worth of games, as was his 0.85 WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched). He threw two complete game shutouts on the season and never had an ERA above 1.50, manufacturing a streak of 38 1/3 innings without allowing a run, the longest verifiable streak in program history. In short, every time Flora took the mound in 2026, he gave the Gauchos a chance to win the game.
 
But what the stats cannot reveal is why. Yes, at 6-foot-5 Flora has a great frame that becomes even more valuable when paired with his remarkable athleticism. A converted shortstop, Flora knows how to use his big, lanky frame to field his position well too, and having a fastball that touches 100 mph is an obvious plus. Coach Checketts will mention all of those things when talking about what makes his ace exceptional, but only after he tells the story of fall conditioning. Flora is the most competitive player on the team. On the mound, during practice, in team-bonding Spikeball tournaments, he just wants to win. That, more than anything else, is what Checketts highlights in Flora. Yes, a lot of the pitches the skipper calls work when the ace is pitching, but the second half of Checketts' quote from that press conference is what has elevated Flora to the upper echelon of all the great arms in the country this season.
 
"With a player like that going out there, leading us, somebody that wants to win, somebody that's not only talented but cares about the team and gets after it … makes it fun to come to the ballpark every day," Checketts continued. "(He) sets the tone for us and gives us a chance every weekend to win on Friday."