SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The No. 25 UC Santa Barbara Men's Soccer team returns home after a three-game road stretch on Thursday night, bringing the momentum of back-to-back wins into Harder Stadium for matchups with a pair of Pac-12 opponents. The Gauchos will host San Diego State on Thursday night, then Oregon State on Sunday night as part of Welcome Weekend.
 
PROMOTIONS
At Thursday night's game, match sponsor Toyota will be giving away special eco tote bags to the first 500 fans through the main gate, and UC Santa Barbara will celebrate its ongoing partnership with Adelante Charter School and Ventura Surf Soccer Club by welcoming those groups to the match.
 
Sunday's game is part of UC Santa Barbara's Welcome Weekend, with new and returning Gauchos back on campus ahead of the start of fall quarter. There will be a special prize wheel for UC Santa Barbara students, with everything from Gaucho blankets to stickers to keychains. Match sponsor Woodstock's Pizza will also have a prize wheel for all fans and will be doing pizza toss giveaways throughout the match. UC Santa Barbara students get into Sunday's game and all Gaucho home games for free with their UCSB student ID. 
 
The UC Santa Barbara Men's Soccer team will continue to have community and theme nights and special promotions at all of its home games this season. For more details on the Gauchos' themes and community programming, visit ucsbgauchos.com/MSOC_Themes.
 
TICKETS
Single-game tickets for all of the Gauchos' home matches are on sale now. Santa Barbara enters the week with a 3-1-2 record as they barrel into the final stretch before Big West conference play. There is also still time to buy season tickets, which start at $125 for general admission seats at every Gaucho home match. All tickets can be purchased online at ucsbgauchos.com/tickets.
 
JUNIOR GAUCHOS
UC Santa Barbara's Junior Gauchos program returns for 2026, giving kids 12 and younger access to every UC Santa Barbara home soccer, volleyball and basketball game, plus special experiences and game day benefits. For more information, visit ucsbgauchos.com/JuniorGauchos.
 
LAST TIME OUT
The Gauchos enter this weekend after consecutive wins, each of which came in a state they had not won in before. Last Monday, Santa Barbara scored with 20 minutes left to defeat Rutgers, 1-0, in New Jersey. On Saturday, they scored with 18 minutes left to defeat Grand Canyon, 2-0, in Arizona. Both game-winners were long-range stunners, one from Kaden Standish on Monday and the other from Steinar Bjornsson in the desert on Monday. Also in both games, goalkeeper Owen Beninga made clutch saves to help secure the result. For those contributions, Beninga was named The Big West Defensive Player of the Week on Monday. Standish, who scored the game-tying goal at Grand Canyon to go along with his winner at Rutgers, joined him as The Big West Offensive Player of the Week.
 
SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS
San Diego State enters the week with a 2-2-3 record, having suffered a 2-1 defeat to crosstown rivals San Diego on Sunday night. The Aztecs scored with essentially the last kick of the game in that match, with two first-half goals deciding the derby in favor of the Toreros. Despite being members of the new-look Pac-12, the Aztecs will also play all seven men's soccer members of The Big West this season, having already faced Cal State Bakersfield and Sacramento State. Their 2-0 win over the Hornets is San Diego State's only Division-I win this season, with their other victory coming against Life Pacific.
 
Sophomore midfielder Nik Orth scored the game-winning goal against Sacramento State, his team-leading fifth of the season. All five have come in the Aztecs' last five games, one each against Cal Poly, Cal State Bakersfield and the aforementioned winner against the Hornets. Gio Aguirre, Jaxson Hutcheon and Lucas Caffo are the other Aztecs with more than one goal on the year, each with two.
 
Oregon State has been nomadic to start the season, playing just one of its first six matches in Corvallis and just two in the state of Oregon. In their last match, the Beavers drew their in-state derby at Portland, 0-0, fending off a Pilots offense that doubled their shot total. In their only home match of the season, Oregon State upset then-No. 11 Washington, 4-3, with four second-half goals. Outside of the Beaver State, the boys in black and orange have gone 1-1-2, with a convincing 3-0 win at Cal State Fullerton and a just as convincing 3-0 loss at Georgetown. They also have a 3-3 draw with UC Irvine and a 1-1 draw at Virginia. The Beavers are taking the full week off before facing the Gauchos on Sunday.
 
Senior forward and Notre Dame transfer Wyatt Borso has scored the decisive goal in each of Oregon State's two wins and leads the team with four goals, while a trio of Beavers have the team lead in assists with three each. When Santa Barbara visited Corvallis last season, Arnau Farnos, Fabian Straudi, Nico Nee and Andrew De Gannes combined to account for all of the three goals and five assists in the match; the good news for the Gauchos is that none of those men return for Oregon State this season.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
Kickoff in both matches is set for 7 p.m. from Harder Stadium, and tickets are on sale now at ucsbgauchos.com/tickets. Fans can also catch all the action from anywhere by watching live on ESPN+ or with live stats through ucsbgauchos.com.