Mustangs Fall to UC Santa Barbara in Blue-Green Series Sweep

Saturday, April 4

San Luis Obispo, CA

1:05 PM

17-13, 10-5

UC Santa Barbara

19-10, 8-4

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
UC Santa Barbara	0	2	0	0	2	2	0	1	5	12	14	1
Cal Poly	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	0	4	8	1

Photo by: Owen Main | Cal Poly Athletics

Mustangs Fall to UC Santa Barbara in Blue-Green Series Sweep

4/4/2026 7:45:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — UC Santa Barbara completed a sweep of its Big West Conference baseball series against Cal Poly with a 12-4 victory Saturday afternoon inside Baggett Stadium.

The visiting Gauchos scored twice in the second inning and never looked back. UCSB built a 6-0 advantage before Cal Poly put up a pair of twos on the scoreboard to close the gap to 7-4. The Gauchos responded with a run in the eighth and five more in the ninth to pull away.

Losing for the sixth time in its last nine games, Cal Poly fell to 17-13 for the season and remains second in the Big West at 10-5. UC Santa Barbara, which had lost eight of 10 prior to the renewal of the Blue-Green Rivalry, improved to 19-10 and 8-4 for third place.

UC San Diego 14-14 overall, 10-2 Big West) defeated Hawai'i 8-0 to move a game-and-a-half ahead of Cal Poly and remain two games in front of the Gauchos.

Left fielder Dante Vachini, catcher Ryan Tayman and center fielder Casey Murray Jr. all hit solo home runs in Cal Poly's pair of comeback rallies.

Vachini hit his first of the year and fourth of his career leading of the seventh inning while Tayman's blast came with one out in the eighth, his sixth in his last seven games and 10th of the season. Murray's fourth home run of the year also was with one out in the eighth.

Cal Poly's other run in the seventh came on a sacrifice fly by Nate Castellon.

UC Santa Barbara third baseman Xavier Esquer, whose father is Stanford head coach David Esquer, hit a solo home run in the second inning. The Gauchos amassed 14 hits, including three each by left fielder Liam Barrett, shortstop Corey Nunez and second baseban Ryan Severns.

Tayman and first baseman Jake Downing each had two of Cal Poly's eight hits.

Gaucho starter Kellan Montgomery (5-2), a transfer from Long Beach State facing Cal Poly for the fourth time, earned his first victory against the Mustangs, allowing one run and five hits over six innings. Carson Turncoats (2-1) suffered the loss, giving up four runs and six hits over 4 1/3 innings with four strikeouts.

Hitting .301 as a team entering the series, Cal Poly was held to six runs and 17 hits in the three games combined, hitting just .179. Tayman and Vachini both went 3-for-11 (.273) in the series while Downing, Murray, second baseman Antonio Castro and third baseman Alejandro Garza all had two hits.

The series drew 7,764 fans, No. 7 on the Baggett Stadium record for a weekend series.

The sweep by the Gauchos was the first in the Blue-Green Rivalry since Cal Poly earned its third straight sweep in 2018. The Mustangs won 11 straight games against the Gauchos from 2016-19, but since then UCSB has won 17 of the last 22 meetings between the two clubs.

Cal Poly hosts San Jose State for a single non-conference midweek game Tuesday at 5 p.m. before playing weekend series on the road at Oregon State (April 10-12) and UC San Diego (April 17-19).