Matadors Face Road Test at No. 25 UCSB

Friday, April 9

Santa Barbara, Calif.

5:00 p.m.

California State University at Northridge

#25 UC Santa Barbara

Photo by: Braden Villanueva

Matadors Face Road Test at No. 25 UCSB

4/6/2021 4:43:00 PM | Baseball

FULL GAME NOTES

NORTHRIDGE, Calif.---CSUN Baseball (5-7, 5-7 Big West) returns to the road for a four-game series against No. 25 UC Santa Barbara (18-8, 9-3 Big West). The series opens Friday at 5 p.m. and continues with a doubleheader on Saturday beginning at 1 p.m. The teams finish off their series on Sunday at 1 p.m. All four games will stream on BigWest.TV.

Probable Pitching Match-Ups
CSUN at UC Santa Barbara - April 9-11
RHP Blake Sodersten (0-0, 3.86 ERA) vs. RHP Michael McGreevy (4-0, 2.42 ERA)
LHP Zuko Tillman (0-2, 16.62 ERA) vs. LHP Rodney Boone (501, 1.86 ERA)
TBA vs. TBA
RHP Blaine Traxel (1-0, 5.48 ERA) vs. RHP JD Callahan (2-1, 8.83 ERA)

This week concludes a four-week stretch where the Matadors have faced the top four projected teams in the Big West. CSUN kicked off the year against a Cal Poly team picked to finish fourth in the league by the Big West head coaches. A week later, the Matadors faced projected second-place team Long Beach State. After hosting projected third-place team UC Irvine last weekend, the Matadors play preseason favorite UC Santa Barbara this week.

The Matadors earned a series split against No. 26 UC Irvine this past week with their two wins coming by way of walk-off victories. The Anteaters took games two and four by double-digits each in seven-inning games.

The opener against UCI would need two days to complete with the Matadors finally prevailing on Saturday afternoon 8-7 in 12 innings. CSUN jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the game and received strong starting pitching from Blake Sodersten who went seven innings, allowing two runs to go with eight strikeouts. UCI would trail 6-2 heading to the ninth before rallying for five runs to take a one-run lead. CSUN responded by tying the game in the bottom of the ninth on an RBI single from Robert Bullard. After the game was suspended due to darkness, the Matadors would win in the 12th on a walk-off home run by freshman Ryan Ball nearly 18 hours later.

The Matadors won game three in a similar fashion with late-inning heroics as they erased a 5-0 deficit and scored in each of the last six innings to win 9-6. CSUN trailed in the bottom of the ninth 6-5 before a two-out rally took place. After Jose Ruiz hit a bloop double, freshman Luke Powell hit a game-tying RBI single. The game went into extras where CSUN put together another two-out rally in the 10th inning. A Carlos Arellano single and a Denzel Clarke walk set the stage for Kai Moody who hit a thrilling three-run home run over the left-field wall.

UCI would win both of its games via run-rule. The Anteaters scored 10 runs in the second inning of both games and never looked back as they won 17-3 and 20-3.

In relief, CSUN received standout performances by Jackson Cunningham and Chad Wilson against the Anteaters. Cunningham worked three shutout innings in the opener including an inning of relief on Saturday when the game was restarted to earn his second win of the season. Wilson would collect his first career Division I victory by tossing three innings on Sunday where he allowed a run and struck out two.

Sunday's walk-off home run capped another impressive series for Moody who collected eight hits, six RBI and four runs scored over the four games against UCI. Moody has hit safely in all 12 of the Matadors' games and recorded seven multiple-hit games already this year. He is second in the nation in batting average (.489) and on-base percentage (.579) while he leads the team in hits (22), runs scored (11) and walks (11).

In a series dating back to 1961, UCSB leads the Matadors 88-68-33 all-time. The Gauchos completed a three-game sweep of CSUN at Matador Field in the teams' last series in 2019, however, two of those games were decided by two runs each. Prior to that series, CSUN had won two-straight series with UCSB, winning four of six games over those two years. Denzel Clarke had an impressive series against UCSB two seasons ago, hitting .444 (4-for-9) with two home runs including an inside-the-park homer.

A Closer Look at UC Santa Barbara
The Gauchos were ranked 25th in this week's NCBWA Top 30 Poll while they also received votes in the USA Today Coaches Poll. UCSB has won seven of its last eight games following a series win at Hawai'i last weekend. After winning the 2019 Big West title, the Gauchos were off to a 13-2 start to the year in 2020 before the season was canceled. Head coach Andrew Checketts is in his 10th season at the helm of the program.

Zach Rodriguez leads the potent Gaucho offense in hitting (.419) while he has three home runs and 20 RBI. Marcos Cantanon is ranked second in the Big West in RBI (25) and tied for third in home runs (5) to go with a .373 batting average. Another top hitter, Broc Mortenson is the Big West leader in home runs (6) while he is tied for third in RBI (23). On the pitching side, the Gauchos have perhaps the top 1-2 punch in conference with Rodney Boone (5-1, 1.86 ERA) and Michael McGreevy (4-0, 2.42 ERA). Boone is first in the league in ERA and wins and fifth in strikeouts (40). McGreevy has struck out a conference-best 51 and is ranked second in wins.

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