Sophomore right-hander Shane Bieber delivered just what UCSB needed to cap a busy weekend of games. He tossed 74 pitches in a near-perfect 7.2-inning outing as his squad bested Dartmouth 10-1 on Sunday afternoon at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.
Junior DH Robby Nesovic and junior first baseman Dalton Kelly provided RBI extra-base hits early in the contest to help No. 13 UCSB (16-6) establish a lead, then senior catcher Campbell Wear provided an emphatic nail-in-the-coffin by smashing a towering two-run shot way past the left-center field fence in the fifth inning.
The loss was an extension of a tough road trip for Dartmouth, which fell to 1-14 on the year. They wrap up a six-day, nine-game excursion through California tomorrow night at Cal Poly.
Bieber, earned his fourth win in six decisions in what was arguably his strongest start of the year. Ironically, it was one his shortest outings, but with the game out of reach and the start of Big West Conference play looming, UCSB head coach Andrew Checketts lifted the Laguna Hills native with one on and two out in the eighth.
Bieber was especially hot out of the gate, retiring the first 12 batters of the game. Overall, he recorded a 1-2-3 inning with nine or less pitches on five occasions. Only once in the game did he reach a three-ball count, and he ended up striking out that batter by inducing a swing-and-miss on an outside fastball.
He finished the day with a line of four hits, one run (none earned), no walks, and five strikeouts.
Freshman right-handers Brandon Luper and Joe Record combined to shut out Dartmouth the rest of the way, allowing just one hit over 1 1/3 innings.
The Gauchos offense was all over Dartmouth’s pitching on Sunday, scoring in five of their eight turns at bat.
Freshman infielder JD Hearn opened the scoring in the second with an opposite-field RBI single.
UCSB would then push across the game-winning run in the next frame. Andrew Calica opened the action with one of his two base hits on the day, the sixth consecutive game he has recorded two hits and the 11th straight game he has picked up at least one hit overall.
Nesovic then received a green light on a 3-0 count, ripping a grounder down the third base line and into the left field corner to score Calica. Kelly responded during the next at-bat by driving a 1-2 pitch into the right-center gap for an RBI standup triple.
After going quietly in the fourth, UCSB put the game away for good their next time up. Nesovic singled to lead off the inning before Kelly worked a walk to put two runners on. A thrown-away pickoff attempt allowed Nesovic to take third, which proved useful as he was able to score on senior second baseman Peter Maris’s RBI groundout.
Wear then crushed a 2-0 Fichthorn fastball into the trees beyond left-center field to put the Gauchos up 6-1. It was the first roundtripper in a Gaucho uniform for the San Diego native and the team’s fourth of the weekend, matching their collective output from the first 18 games of the season.
Next up, the Gauchos will travel to Loyola Marymount to play a midweek contest on Tuesday night before welcoming Long Beach State to Santa Barbara this weekend for the start of conference action.
