Around this time last year, UC Santa Barbara ace Jackson Flora was wrapping up a one-hit complete game shutout of Cal Poly Baseball to take the series win on Easter weekend.
He wasn’t the ace back then, that slot was occupied by Tyler Bremner, the No. 2 pick in the 2025 MLB Draft.
Just a couple weeks to the day that Flora shut out the Mustangs, he did it again. This time it was to take the series opener on Thursday.
The Mustangs (17-11, 10-3 Big West) fared slightly better this time out, notching four hits, but the Gauchos (17-10, 6-4 Big West) used a big fourth inning to take game one of the series with a 6-0 final score.
Almost all of the damage was done in that fourth inning for UC Santa Barbara, as they strung together five hits with three doubles to score five runs in the inning. They chased Cal Poly ace Griffin Naess midway through the frame, the second time he has failed to get past the fourth inning in Big West play after he got the hook against UC Davis two weekends ago.
It didn’t matter much, as the offense couldn’t get anything going against Flora, who has a chance to make UC Santa Barbara the second school ever to produce the first pitcher taken in back-to-back drafts.
When the Mustangs did hit the ball, they hit it hard. Three of the Mustang’s four hits went for doubles, with Dante Vachini’s one-out hit in the third the lone single.
Brady Estes, Troy Cooper and Sean McGrath all came into relief for Cal Poly and held the Gauchos to just one run across the last 5 2/3 innings.
Big West leaders UC San Diego were victorious, widening the gap between the Tritons and the rest of the pack. Cal Poly still holds the second spot but UC Santa Barbara trails them in third.
The Mustangs are 3-4 in their last seven games, and they’ll get a chance to reset from Big West play next week, but right now they need to avoid a sweep to hold on to a tie for second place in the conference.
They will have their shot at getting even in the series on Friday with first pitch at 6:05 p.m. at Mustang Memorial Field.
