Zach Samuels hustled back out to the pitching mound and restored his confidence in a hurry.
Just a day after giving up four runs without recording an out in UCSB’s 8-7 loss to St. Louis, the Gaucho reliever hurled six innings of 2-hit ball, striking out nine in a 6-0 win over Westmont at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.
“Things didn’t go as well as I had hoped yesterday, so I wanted to come out and get through as many innings as possible to save our pitching for tomorrow and this weekend,” said the 6-2 junior righty out of San Jose. “I accomplished that, so I’m very happy.”
Starter Jesse Meaux went the first three innings, allowing just one hit with six strikeouts, and coach Bob Bronstema said that having Samuels go the rest of the way was one of the most important things for his team heading into Tuesday afternoon’s home game against No. 12 UCLA and weekend games against host Minnesota, Hawaii and Washington at the Dairy Queen Classic.
“We only used two arms… With the UCLA game tomorrow, the games we had yesterday and the injuries we have, we don’t have much depth right now, so to get that kind of performance out of Zach was big for us,” said Brontsema.
UCSB (2-1) defeated Cal State Bakersfield 10-0 in a nightcap on Sunday, and Monday’s game gave the Gauchos their first back-to-back shutouts since 1992.
Westmont continued to struggle offensively, mustering only three hits while striking out 15 times on the day. On the mound, Keith Johnson allowed six earned runs, eight hits and four walks with three strikeouts while Chris Plance gave up just one hit over the final 1 2/3 innings.
UCSB’s Mark Haddow tripled with one out in the second and was driven in on a Steve Cook groundout to open the scoring, Marty Mullins and Lance Roenicke followed with back-to-back singles, and Brian Gump launched a 3-run homer to cap the big inning.
The Gauchos scored their next two runs in the seventh on an RBI triple by Ryan Cavan and a sacrifice fly by Shane Carlson.
Westmont is now 2-14 after a tumultuous offseason in which the Tea Fire claimed all of the team’s equipment and required a complete rebuild of the facilities at Russ Carr Field, which will be completely renovated again this coming offseason.
“It’s had a big effect on us. We didn’t want to use it as a crutch or excuse, but we missed about a month and a half of practice,” said coach Scott Deck. “Our pitchers were able to maintain themselves, but it really put our hitters behind a little bit.
“Our school did a great job of putting together a field for us, but we’re struggling and we know that.”
The bright side is that the Warriors are just eight games into a 36-game GSAC schedule, leaving plenty of time for improvement.
The Gauchos welcome No. 12 UCLA to Caesar Uyesaka after losing a 5-4 decision to the Bruins in a 13-inning thriller down in L.A. last season that went well into the night.
“It’s an at-large type of thing that they look at. At the end of the year, maybe if we won that game they would have given us a bid. So you look at these games as a test and maybe the difference between going and not going to the postseason if you don’t win the conference,” said Brontsema.
Fans attending the game are encouraged to wear pink in celebration of UCSB’s “Pink Zone” day, which serves to raise breast cancer awareness. First pitch is slated for 2 p.m.
