Muristek
Make it seven straight wins for the No. 25 UCSB baseball team, which topped Cal State Fullerton Saturday evening 7-2 to take the series.
The Gauchos posted a four-spot in the fifth after falling behind and saw another great performance from Mike Gutierrez, who picked up his third win of the season.
Gutierrez tossed 5.1 innings and allowed just one earned while striking out a career-high nine batters.
Matt Ager had an excellent outing coming in his relief in the sixth and tossing 2.2 innings of one-hit, scoreless ball.
On the offensive end, the Gauchos outhit the Titans 12-7 and saw three home runs by Broc Mortensen, Jordan Sprinkle and Nick Vogt.
John Newman Jr. had a career-night with the bat going 3-for-4 with two runs scored, and Jason Willow went 2-for-4 with a triple, an RBI and a run.
Much like game one, neither team’s offense was able to break through until the fifth inning. It was the Titans striking first, collecting an RBI single. But Gutierrez stranded two runners with back-to-back strikeouts to get out of the jam.
Down 1-0, the Gauchos quickly answered in the bottom half of the fourth with a four-spot to regain the lead.
Zander Darby tied the game with an RBI single on a full count to score. Newman and Jordan Sprinkle gave UCSB its first lead, collecting a sac-fly to bring in Jason Willow.
Up next was Mortensen, who crushed a two-run, no-doubter over the right field wall to make it 4-1.
Another run came across in the bottom of the sixth as Willow collected a two-triple to score. Newman and the seventh brought two more in as both Sprinkle and Nick Vogt sent solo homers over the left field wall to extend the lead to 7-1.
Cal State Fullerton brought the final run of the game in the ninth, but that would be all as the Gauchos took the game 7-2.
Daniel Moebus-Bowles writes about sports for UCSB.
email: sports@newspress.com
The post Seven straight wins for UCSB baseball team appeared first on Santa Barbara News-Press.