SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Rodney Boone tossed five scoreless innings and the UC Santa Barbara bullpen held off a Broncos rally to give No. 8 UCSB a 5-4 victory and a series win over Santa Clara baseball on Sunday.
The Gauchos southpaw allowed just two hits, a walk and struck out nine batters before being lifted with a 5-0 lead in favor of reliever James Callahan.
Facing Callahan in the top half of the sixth, the Broncos offense came alive to score four runs including Mike Bowes' three-run home run, his third in as many games. The Brigman brothers, Dawson and Coleman, got things started reaching base on UCSB miscues before Dawson Brigman came home on Jason Dicochea's sacrifice fly to get on the board, 5-1.
Callahan hit the next batter Jake MacNichols and then gave up a three-run home run to Mike Bowes who was moved up to the clean up spot after going deep twice in the first two games of the series.
The Santa Clara (1-2) bullpen kept it a 5-4 game behind three scoreless innings by Jared Feikes but the UCSB (2-1) relievers were equally up to the task. Callahan along with Connor Roberts and Christopher Troye blanked the Broncos in the final three innings to preserve the win for Boone. Troye struck out the side in the ninth as part of a 16 strikeout effort by the UCSB bullpen.
Marcos Castanon collected two of the five hits for the Gauchos including an RBI single in the bottom of the first and McClain O'Connor hit a solo homer in the second off of Broncos starter Matthew McGarry who took the loss.
The Broncos won the first game of the series 8-4 but lost 9-6 on Saturday.
