Muristek
The UCSB baseball team won its third straight game of the spring break road trip Saturday afternoon taking down UC Davis 9-3.
The bats came alive for the visiting Gauchos, who outhit the Aggies 15-7 and posted a four-spot in the top of the second inning.
Mike Gutierrez earned the start, tossing 4.1 innings of work and allowing three runs on five hits while striking out three. In his relief came three Gauchos in Matt Ager, Hayden Hattenbach and Alex Schrier, who all kept clean sheets. Ager (1-0) earned his first career win, tossing 2.2 innings of one-hit ball with four Ks.
Five Gauchos collected multi-hit performances, including Jordan Sprinkle, who stayed hot with a 4-for-5 performance and Blake Klassen, who went a perfect 3-for-3 with a walk. Sprinkle collected a double and an RBI, and Klassen had a pair of doubles and an RBI.
Zander Darby went 2-for-5 and homered for the second straight game, giving him his fourth of the season. He added a double and a team-high four RBI.
The scoring got started in the second with Klassen and Kyle Johnson collecting back-to-back singles to lead off the inning. Christian Kirtley then shot one down the left line to score Klassen for the first run of the day. With two outs, the top of the order came around and Darby stepped to the plate to crush a three-run homer to make it 4-0.
The sole scoring efforts of the game for UC Davis came in the fourth where the Aggies collected a bases-clearing double to cut the lead to 4-3.
The bats kept going for the Gauchos though as Klassen, Darby, and Sprinkle collected RBI doubles in the fifth and sixth to grow their lead to 7-3.
Gaucho pitching continued to hold off the Aggies stranding 10 runners on base in the game.
Mason Eng collected a sac-fly in the seventh to score Klassen and Johnson added a sac-fly in the ninth, also scoring Klassen, and ending the offensive efforts for the game.
Daniel Moebus-Bowles writes about sports for UCSB.
email: sports@newspress.com
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