Cal Poly Completes Sweep of UC Santa Barbara Series With 4-3 Victory

Sunday, April 24

1 pm

25-13, 7-2

UC Santa Barbara

25-10-1, 5-4

UC Santa Barbara

Cal Poly

Cal Poly Completes Sweep of UC Santa Barbara Series With 4-3 Victory

4/24/2016 12:00:00 AM | Baseball

Box Score

VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. – Sophomore right-hander Jarred Zill earned his fourth victory as Cal Poly extended its winning streak to a season-long six games by completing a three-game Big West Conference series sweep against Blue-Green rival and Nos. 9/11/13-ranked UC Santa Barbara with a 4-3 triumph Sunday afternoon before 1,505 in Baggett Stadium.

Zill (4-1) struck out five, walked just one and scattered four hits over 6 1/3 innings, surrendering one earned run in the first inning despite a pair of Mustang errors.

With the win, Coach Larry Lee's Mustangs moved into a tie for first place with Cal State Fullerton, both with 7-2 Big West marks, and improved to 25-13 for the year. UC Santa Barbara fell to 5-4 and 25-10-1.

"We played some really good baseball in a number of different areas," said Lee. "We limited our mistakes, had some very good starting pitching, was solid from the bullpen and played errorless defense in the first two games of the series.

"Offensively, we swung the bats better than we have," Lee added. "We barreled up against some good pitching. When you hit .317 and score 21 runs off UCSB pitching, you did something right."

UC Santa Barbara scored a run in the first inning on a leadoff double by Andrew Calica, a throwing error and a groundout.

Cal Poly answered with a run in the fourth as Josh George singled and eventually came home on an error by the Gauchos.

The Mustangs snapped the 1-1 deadlock with two runs in the sixth inning on a sacrifice fly by Michael Sanderson and an RBI double down the left-field line by Nick Meyer.

Cal Poly added another run in the seventh as Brett Binning doubled, took third on a groundout and scored on a passed ball.

UC Santa Barbara rallied for two runs in the eighth on an RBI double by Dempsey Grover and a run-scoring single by Devon Gradford. The Gauchos nearly tied the game but Billy Fredrick's sinking line drive to left-center field was caught by a diving George for the final out of the inning.

Clay Fisher led off the Gaucho ninth with a single to left-center field and moved to second base on a sacrifice bunt, but Justin Calomeni earned his sixth save by striking out both Ryan Cumberland and Ryan Clark to end the game.

The loss went to Joe Record (4-4) as he allowed three runs (two earned) and seven hits over 5 1/3 innings with no walks and five strikeouts.

Cal Poly had a 9-8 edge in hits, led by John Schuknecht with two singles. Meyer, Binning and Cooper Moore added doubles while Brett Barbier stretched his hitting streak to 14 games by leading off the two-run sixth-inning rally with a single. Barbier also has reached base safely in all 38 games this season.

Calica and Fisher both had two hits for UC Santa Barbara.

Cal Poly hit .317 in the series and stole five of five bases. Sunday's three steals are a season high for the Mustangs. Schuknecht went 6-for-12 in the series with a double, home run and five RBI while George was 5-for-12 and both Meyer and Barbier 4-for-11.

The Mustang pitching staff held the Gauchos to eight total runs and a .188 team batting average.

Cal Poly swept the Gauchos for the first time since 2012, Lee is now 34-23 against UC Santa Barbara since taking over the helm at Cal Poly in 2003 and the Mustangs have won 42 of their last 71 games against the Gauchos.

"The sweep keeps us in the upper portion of the conference," said Lee. "It was very important to win today's game and put UCSB another game behind us."

The Mustangs have won seven of 10 weekend series this season, including sweeps over Pacific, San Francisco and UC Santa Barbara.

Cal Poly plays four games on the road next week, visiting Cal for a non-conference contest Tuesday at 5 p.m. and traveling to Long Beach State next Friday through Sunday for a three-game Big West series.

Photo above courtesy of Tommy Tran | Mustang News