Baseball Travels To UC Santa Barbara For Three-Game Series With Gauchos

April 25	3 pm PT	at UC Santa Barbara	RHP, Jake Smigelski	Game Notes	Listen Live (UCSB Feed)	Live Stats	Purchase Tickets
April 26	2 pm PT	at UC Santa Barbara	RHP, Zach Varela		Listen Live (UCSB Feed)	Live Stats	Purchase Tickets
April 27	1 pm PT	at UC Santa Barbara	LHP, Ben Doucette		Listen Live (UCSB Feed)	Live Stats	Purchase Tickets

Riverside—The UC Riverside Baseball Team (6-3) travels to UC Santa Barbara (5-7) this weekend hoping to solidify its hold on third place in the Big West, while gaining ground on front runners Cal Poly (11-1) and UC Irvine (8-1).

The Highlanders moved into sole possession of third place last weekend with a three-game sweep of UC Davis. David Andriese has regained his batting stroke with six extra base hits over his last eight games. He is hitting .313 during that stretch. Nick Vilter has also bounced back from a recent slump, and is hitting .353 over his last five games.

UC Riverside will keep its typical weekend rotation with Jake Smigelski (5-4, 2.97) throwing Friday, Zach Varela (5-2, 2.67) pitching Saturday and Ben Doucette (3-3, 4.12) getting the nod on Sunday.

UC Santa Barbara is still ranked in the top 25 in one of the major polls, but dropped out of the others over the past two weeks thanks to a 5-7 record in Big West play. That includes winning just one of three against Long Beach State last weekend. But the Gauchos have had some tough luck during that stretch, dropping a 1-0 decision to Cal Poly, and 3-2 and 1-0 decisions to the Dirtbags.

UCSB has one of the leading player of the year candidates on its roster in the form of Joey Epperson. The senior ranks in the top three in the conference in batting average (.418), on base percentage (.497) and slugging percentage (.560). As a team, the Gauchos have an offensive slash line of .298/.386/.396. They rank first in the Big West in steals and second in home runs.

Right-hander Austin Pettibone (2-1, 4.64), lefty Justin Jacome (4-1, 2.49) and righty Shane Bieber (2-1. 2.89) will get the starting nods for UC Santa Barbara this weekend.

The Highlanders are 25-18 overall against the Gauchos, but UC Santa Barbara has won four of the last six meetings between the clubs (view all-time results).

Baseball Travels To UC Santa Barbara For Three-Game Series With Gauchos

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