CSUN Hits the Road to Take on UC Riverside

Thursday, April 9

Riverside, Calif.

2:00 p.m.

California State University at Northridge

UC Riverside

Photo by: Chuck Marvel

CSUN Hits the Road to Take on UC Riverside

4/8/2026 2:51:00 PM | Baseball

BASE Game Notes - April 8

NORTHRIDGE, Calif.---CSUN Baseball (18-13, 8-7 Big West) travels this week to UC Riverside for a three-game Big West series. Due to anticipated inclement weather in the Riverside area, the series opener has been moved up to Thursday at 2 p.m. while the rest of the series is set for Friday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. All three games will be broadcast on ESPN+.

FOR STARTERS
CSUN has hit the midway point of the Big West season as the Matadors have accumulated three series wins out of five. The Matadors are holding fifth place in the Big West standings at 8-7, but they are just one game back of fourth place and two games back second place. UC San Diego leads the conference with a 10-2 record followed by Cal Poly at 10-5, UC Santa Barbara at 8-4 and Cal State Fullerton at 9-6. Just below CSUN is UC Irvine at 6-6, Cal State Bakersfield at 5-7 and Hawai'i at 6-9. The top five in the conference standings will advance to the 2026 Big West Baseball Championship in May.

LAST TIME OUT
CSUN secured a season series win over Pepperdine after claiming a 4-2 victory on Tuesday at Robert J. Hiegert Field. In the team's third meeting of the season, the Waves scored single tallies in the fifth and sixth innings to build a 2-0 lead before Matthew Pena belted a sixth-inning two-run homer to even the game up. An inning later, Matthew Thomas hit a go-ahead solo homer while he added another RBI via a sacrifice fly in the eighth. Six Matador pitchers saw action in the game, as Charles Rogers tossed three shutout innings to start while Kody King picked up the win with a shutout seventh inning. James Voorhies closed the door with a 1-2-3 top of the ninth to pick up the save.

THIS WEEKEND'S ROTATION
CSUN will send sophomore right hander Gabriel Hernandez (3-2) in the opener of the UCR series followed by graduate right hander Lucas Alaniz (0-3) on Friday and junior right hander Traig Oughton (3-0) in the finale on Sunday. Making his fourth straight start to open a series, Hernandez has worked a team-high 46.1 innings, racking up 28 strikeouts with a season 4.47 ERA while he sports two wins with a 3.24 ERA in Big West play. Alaniz, who is making his second straight weekend start, shares the team lead with Oughton in strikeouts with 29.

LEADING THE BIG WEST
CSUN enters the weekend leading the Big West in home runs with 52 on the season, good enough for 26th-best in the nation. The Matadors are also first in RBI (201), total bases (539) and slugging percentage (.516) while they rank second in batting (.293), runs scored (212), hits (306) and triples (10). Junior first baseman Matthew Pena kept up his offensive tear this past Tuesday, clubbing his Big West-best 13th homer of the season. Pena is also first in the conference in OPS (1.235), RBI (36) and slugging percentage (.800). Matthew Thomas is the conference leader in runs scored with 34.

MATADOR QUICK HITS
Matthew Pena is up to 14th in the nation in total homers (13) and 15th in home runs per game (0.43). Pena is also hitting at a .320 clip at the plate ... Matthew Thomas ranks second in the Big West in several categories including OPS (1.224), hits (42), homers (11) and slugging percentage (.786) while the junior outfielder has moved into third place on the batting list at a .349 average ... Kyle Panganiban, who has missed the past five games, hopes to return to the lineup this weekend. The third baseman is batting .324 on the season with eight homers and 28 RBI. In Big West play though, Panganiban has hit a red-hot .354 in 12 games ... As a team, CSUN is hitting .302 in 15 Big West games with 22 home runs as a group ... Freshman James Voorhies notched his third save for CSUN against Pepperdine in his move back to the bullpen after a quick stint in the rotation. Voorhies has 26 strikeouts in 25.2 innings with hitters managing just a .204 average this season.

SCOUTING UC RIVERSIDE
The Highlanders are 8-23 overall and 3-9 in Big West play. The team has dropped the past five games after suffering a sweep at Cal State Fullerton and a midweek 1-0 loss to San Diego State this past Tuesday. While going 3-9 in conference action, UCR has wins over conference leading UC San Diego and second place Cal Poly this season. As a team, UCR is fifth in the Big West with 22 home runs while the team sports a team .243 batting average. Lucas Bonham leads the team with six homers to go with a .283 batting average and 20 RBI. Former Matador Jarren Sanderson sports a .277 average at the plate with four homers and a team-best 22 RBI. On the pitching staff, Matthew O'Brien has gone 2-3 with a 4.53 ERA with 27 strikeouts over eight starts.

Series History: CSUN leads the all-time series with UCR 134-97-1. The Matadors have won the past four series with the Highlanders as well as three straight series on the road. Last season, CSUN won two of three from UCR in Northridge.

#GoMatadors