Dillon Tate hurls a pitch. Dustin Harris/Daily Nexus

Dillon Tate hurls a pitch. Dustin Harris/Daily Nexus

The UCSB baseball team emerged victorious from its game against Fresno State yesterday with a go-ahead RBI in the bottom of the eighth inning to win the game 6–5.

The Gauchos prepare to enter the rest of their series with a 2–1 Big West and 20–7 overall record. Fresno, however, falls closer to .500 with its loss yesterday and faces the rest of the week with a 7–5 conference and 16–14 overall record.

“[Last series] is in the past now,” senior third baseman Peter Maris said. “We wanted to focus on today and be in the present. We’ve got to take one game at a time.”

Maris went 3–4 in yesterday’s game and drove in what would become the winning run after junior designated hitter/pitcher Robby Nesovic came to shut out Fresno St.

In three pitching appearances from Nesovic this season, yesterday’s game accounted for his second save.

“It feels fantastic and it was exciting. I was put down for closer so I wasn’t surprised,” Nesovic said. “I got back from my last at-bat to get ready and was ready to go.”

An early Gaucho 5–1 lead only held through five innings, as the Bulldogs tied the ball game with a four-run sixth inning against UCSB’s junior left-handed starter Domenic Mazza.

Redshirt freshman right-handed pitcher Joe Record pitched for 1.1 innings and managed to stop Bulldog momentum, while being recorded as the game’s winning pitcher for the second time this year. Record was followed by Nesovic on the mound.

“We need to get more strikes out of [Nesovic], but he found out a way to get that final out before they scored the tying run and there’s an art to that. He’s starting to get comfortable and figure it out,” Head Coach Andrew Checketts said.

After a slow offensive series for the Gauchos last weekend, the team recorded 10 total hits of 32 at-bats off Fresno ace, sophomore right-handed Jimmy Lambert. Lambert pitched for seven innings, with 31 pitches thrown and only three strikeouts.

Up to face the Fresno lineup today is junior right-handed pitcher Dillon Tate. During Tate’s last appearance in the loss to Long Beach, the team struggled offensively to put up winning numbers. The offense accounted for a season-low two hits, while Tate allowed only two runs in three hits and struck out 10.

“I feel good every time Dillon pitches; I feel like we’ve got a chance,” Checketts said. “We have not scored a lot for him in the past, but hopefully this will be a little different.”

The Gauchos will face Fresno St. the remainder of this week and conclude the series with a day game Saturday. Today’s game is set for 3 p.m.

 

A version of this article appeared on page 13 of April 2, 2015’s print edition of the Daily Nexus.

Print