On the brink of NCAA Regional selections, the UCSB softball team had its playoff hopes pushed under the rug this weekend.

In the final series of Big West play, Cal Poly brought out the brooms, sweeping the Gauchos (26-22 overall, 9-12 in the Big West) and holding them to only two runs in three games.

The Mustangs (35-16 overall, 15-6 Big West) moved up to second place in the Big West behind Long Beach State, trampling Santa Barbara with 3-2, 4-0 and 5-0 wins in San Luis Obispo.

“This weekend we didn’t play defense and we didn’t really hit,” Head Coach Kristy Schroeder said. “It all came down to us not being consistent. Cal Poly was consistent this weekend and all season long for that matter; however, they didn’t have as tough a schedule as we did. But we just didn’t play fundamentals and couldn’t pull out a win this weekend.”

The first game of the doubleheader on Friday remained scoreless until the third inning when back-to-back hits in the bottom of the third brought in three Mustang runs. Sophomore pitcher Jennifer Davis pitched a complete game and held Cal Poly scoreless after the third inning.

The Gauchos did not score a run until the sixth inning when freshman designated hitter Danielle Meyers singled to right field to score sophomore shortstop Brittany Putich and sophomore outfield Jessica Hejna. However, the UCSB bats went cold after the sixth inning of game one, going scoreless for the rest of the series.

“Jenn Davis threw a real nice game in the first game. She didn’t throw bad, but she had no help from her defense,” Schroeder said. “But then again, she didn’t help herself out either. She would give up a hit after an error and hit a batter. We wouldn’t have been in those kinds of situations if we played our game.”

UCSB closed out its season on a six-game losing streak and closed out the weekend series with a total of four defensive errors.

In game three on Saturday, Meyers, junior third baseman Karyna Wilkerson and sophomore second baseman Kendra Singley each recorded one hit, the only Gaucho hits of the game.

“We definitely underachieved this season,” Schroeder said. “We lost three seniors from last year and our catcher, Shelby Hensler, suffered a season-ending injury this year. So that’s four players from last year we didn’t have on the roster this year. I thought we were going to do well this season, but we never really picked it up when we needed to.”