Month: April 2026

Mike Klan

UC SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – Kellan Montgomery pitched eight strong innings and Nico Libed delivered the big hit as UCSB edged UC San Diego 3-1 to pull within a game of the Tritons in the Big West standings.

The Dos Pueblos High School alum Montgomery allowed just one run and four hits while striking out 9 as he improved to 6-2 on the year.

(Montgomery retired the final 13 batters he faced in the win. Entenza Design).

The Gauchos were trailing 1-0 but in the bottom the seventh inning Nico Libed came off the bench and delivered a two-out, 2-run pinch-hit double down the left field line to put the Gauchos in the lead for good.

From head coach Andrew Checketts: “Yeah, he looked bad on the first breaking ball, swung through it, then did a really good job of laying off some pitches and got a mistake and made the guy pay when he made the mistake. Nico, he’s a really good .200 hitter. He’s better than that, he puts together competitive at-bats, we felt like at that time he gave us a really good shot. We needed a hit, he pulled the gear off in the bullpen, ran down there and did his thing, so it was pretty cool.”

Liam Barrett smashed a solo home run in the bottom of the eighth inning to give the Gauchos an insurance run.

“(Barrett) has been a breath of fresh air for us ever since we inserted him in there since he came back from injury,” said Checketts. “Some other guys went down, he’s done a really good job of taking quality at-bat after quality at-bat after quality at-bat and that was another example of that.”

Van Froling struck out the side in the ninth inning for his second save on the year.

UCSB is now 22-11 on the season and 10-5 in the Big West as they try to chase down the Tritons who are 11-4 in league. The Gauchos are tied for second with Cal Poly in league.

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Mike Klan

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – Matteo Burdick had 25 kills to lead San Marcos boys volleyball to a 5-set win over Burbank-Burroughs in the championship game of the Karch Kiraly Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions.

Burdick was named the MVP as the Royals won their first ever TOC.

San Marcos won the final set 21-19.

Host Santa Barbara went 2-2 to claim fourth place in the 16-team tournament.

Dos Pueblos finished 11th.

Local players joining Burdick on the All-Tournament team were Royals teammates Keanu Nguyen and Tyler Walker along with Santa Barbara’s Maddox Denver and Jasper Bell

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Mike Klan

ARCADIA, Calif. (KEYT) – Santa Barbara High School junior Elina Stump won the Open Division long jump at the prestigious Arcadia Invitational with a Dons program-record mark of 18 feet, 11 inches.

(Video courtesy Olivia Percedes).

Stump also finished second in the triple jump 37-11 and placed 9th in the 100-hurdles with a personal best time of 14.69 seconds.

Cal Poly-bound football player Malachi Johnston came in 10th place for the Dons in the Open Division shot put with a distance of 52 feet, 10 inches.

San Marcos High School senior Logan Patterson Deakyne finished third in the 300 hurdles in a time of 38.43 seconds

The Royals girls 4×1600 relay team of Samara Shalhoub, Autumn Richardson, Layla Llewellyn and Elsie Tuttle came in fourth place.

Dos Pueblos boys 4×1600 finished in third place in the 1600. Cullen Gully, Owen Abbott, Ashton Smedley and Ian McMurtry finished in a time of 17:13.43.

The Dos Pueblos distance medley relay team set a school record finishing in third place in the DMR at the Arcadia Invitational. Ashton Smedley led off in the 1200 meter leg, Kellan Cotter ran the 400, Cullen Gulley the 800, and Owen Abbott the 1600. Their final time was 10:07.34.

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Mike Klan

CORVALLIS, Oregon. (KEYT) – Cal Poly has outscored Oregon State 5-0 in the first inning so far this weekend. It’s the remaining eight frames that have given the Mustangs some trouble.

The host Beavers, who rallied from a 2-0 deficit for a 6-4 victory Friday night, registered another come-from-behind win Saturday, turning a 3-0 shortfall into an 11-6 triumph.

The two wins inside Goss Stadium at Coleman Field clinched the three-game non-conference baseball series for the No. 7-ranked Beavers (27-7) with one more contest to be played Sunday afternoon.

Cal Poly (18-15) has been outscored 17-7 from the second through ninth innings in suffering its eighth loss in the Mustangs’ last 12 games.

Third baseman Alejandro Garza continued his hot streak at the plate with a one-out solo home run in the first inning and, three batters later, left fielder Xander McLaurin added a two-run double to left-center field for a quick 3-0 Mustang lead.

Oregon State, however, scored the next eight runs of the game for an 8-3 cushion. Cal Poly made one last run with a three-run sixth-inning rally. Designated hitter Gavin Spiridonoff doubled down the right-field line for one RBI and the other runs came courtesy of wild pitches.

The Beavers pulled away again with two runs in the sixth and one more in the eighth.

Garza went 3-for-5 at the plate with one RBI and one run scored. The junior has four multiple-hit games in his last five starts and nine of his last 14, a team-leading 16 multiple-hit contests for the year, and has lifted his batting average 80 points to .349 over his last 14 games.

McLaurin, Spiridonoff and catcher Ryan Tayman each added two hits as Cal Poly outhit Oregon State 10-9. Both of McLaurin’s hits were doubles and he has lifted his batting average 60 points to .310 since and including his 7-for-13, four-RBI performance in the UC Riverside series two weeks ago

Oregon State powered its way to victory with three home runs. First baseman Bryson Glassco smashed a two-run shot in the fourth and a three-run blast in the fifth while third baseman Paul Vazquez added a two-run homer in the second. Glassco now has five home runs and Vazquez six.

Second baseman AJ Singer knocked in three runs with a pair of doubles and designated hitter Bryce Hubbard also had two hits for Oregon State.

Southpaw Ethan Kleinschmit (6-2) earned the victory, though he allowed five runs and six hits over 5 1/3 innings with eight strikeouts. The loss was charged to right-hander Carson Turnquist (2-2), who gave up four runs and four hits in 3 1/3 innings of work on the mound.

Following Friday’s 1-hour, 45-minute weather delay due to lightning in the third inning, Saturday’s game also was delayed, this time in the sixth inning for 40 minutes because of lightning strikes. Rain fell from the fifth inning through the end of Saturday’s contest.

Sunday’s series finale begins at 1:05 p.m. Cal Poly will start freshman right-hander Corden Pettey (2-2, 4.75 ERA) while Oregon State will go with junior righty Eric Segura (3-1, 1.50 ERA).

(Courtesy of Cal Poly Athletics)

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Mike Klan

UC SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – The UC Santa Barbara Baseball team (21-11, 9-5 Big West) went all 12 rounds with UC San Diego (15-15, 11-3 Big West) — well, actually just 11 — as Saturday afternoon turned to evening, outlasting the Tritons in a nearly five-hour slugfest thanks to Xavier Esquer’s 11th-inning walk-off RBI single. The Gauchos evened up this weekend’s three-game series with their 11-10 victory, with freshman Josh Jannicelli picking up his well-deserved first collegiate win with three clutch relief innings on the mound.

QUOTABLEFrom head coach Andrew Checketts: “It’s actually funny because before the weekend — Coach Newman and I have a good relationship and we were talking about the weekend — we said they’ll probably win the low-scoring game and we’ll probably win the high-scoring game because they’ve scored runs and had trouble keeping runs off the board and we have kept runs off the board but had trouble putting them up,” Checketts said. “He was right so far, they won the low-scoring affair, we won the high-scoring affair, which isn’t exactly how both teams typically win, so it would be nice to score a bunch tomorrow and not give up very many.

I thought Josh Jannicelli was awesome today. He came in with a runner on second and nobody out, was able to get that thing stopped, and then pitched fantastic. That was his first collegiate win, so that was certainly a highlight for the bullpen.”

HOW IT HAPPENEDThe teams spent the first few innings feeling each other out before Santa Barbara delivered the first big blow of the day, Nate Vargas’ two-run home run to straightaway center field. UC San Diego answered with a right jab of an RBI double in the top of the fourth as haymakers started to fly in both directions.

Mitch Namie landed a left hook with an RBI double to left center in the fourth, his first extra-base hit and RBI as a Gaucho. William Vasseur came through with a jab of an RBI single in the fifth, then Corey Nunez’s big right cross of a double down the right field line added another run. Vasseur was alert to a bad throw back in on the play and took the opportunity to scamper home, and with a 6-1 lead, Santa Barbara seemed to have their visitors on the ropes.

But Tritons surged off the mat in the sixth, coming through with an RBI single and a sacrifice fly. Those two body shots not only cut the lead to three, but they also set up the first big uppercut, a two-out, two-RBI double to left center that made the score 6-5.

After both teams’ swings found nothing but leather in the sixth, the Gauchos got a jab through the Triton defense to extend their lead in the seventh, with Jonathan Mendez’s opposite-field single making the score 7-5.

Yet again, UC San Diego responded by coming up swinging. The Tritons landed the biggest punch of the day in the eighth, a two-out grand slam to take their first lead of the game, 9-7. Back-to-back doubles to start the ninth constituted a pair of left hooks and put the Gauchos right up against the ropes, down 10-7 with just three outs to play with.

Taking a lesson from their opponents, Santa Barbara swung its way off the mat. Jonathan Mendez started the inning with a huge right cross, a line-drive home run over the wall in left field. Then the Gauchos got scrappy. Max Stagg’s hustle to first base broke up what would have been a game-ending double play, and Santa Barbara made the most of its extra life. Rowan Kelly legged out an infield single to make the score 10-9, then Jack Haferkamp, who entered the game as a pinch runner, came home on a wild pitch, just narrowly beating the tag to earn his squad a ticket to extra innings.

Jannicelli had struck out the side after those back-to-back doubles in the top of the ninth, truly the first punches in Santa Barbara’s fightback. He was back out and back at it in the 10th, picking up two more K’s in a perfect frame. After the Gauchos went in order in their half of the 10th, Jannicelli again kept the Tritons from landing any punches. He did hit a batter, but he left him stranded at second. When Santa Barbara got themselves a runner at second thanks to Nunez’s lead-off single and a textbook bunt from Stagg, they made sure not to waste their window of opportunity. Esquer landed the knockout blow, a two-out single back up the middle for the Gauchos’ first walk-off of the season.

UP NEXTSanta Barbara’s victory sets up a rubber match on Sunday, with the winner taking the series. First pitch is set for 1:05 p.m. from Caesar Uyesaka Stadium, with Kellan Montgomery scheduled to take the mound for the Gauchos. Tickets are on sale now at ucsbgauchos.com/tickets.

(Article courtesy of UCSB Athletics)

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