UC Santa Barbara Gauchos baseball

Last updated
UC Santa Barbara Gauchos baseball
Baseball current event.svg 2024 UC Santa Barbara Gauchos baseball team
UC Santa Barbara Gauchos wordmark.svg
Founded1922 (1922)
University University of California, Santa Barbara
Head coach Andrew Checketts (13th season)
Conference Big West
Location Santa Barbara, California
Home stadium Caesar Uyesaka Stadium
(Capacity: 1,000)
Nickname Gauchos
ColorsBlue and gold [1]
   
College World Series appearances
2016
NCAA regional champions
2016
NCAA Tournament appearances
1952, 1972, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1996, 2001, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2024
Regular season conference champions
1950, 1952, 1954, 1972, 1983, 1986, 2019, 2022, 2024

The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos baseball team represents the University of California, Santa Barbara in the sport of baseball. The Gauchos compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) through the Big West Conference. They are currently led by head coach Andrew Checketts, who led his fifth season with the Gauchos in 2016. [2]

Contents

History

Emergence of a team

UCSB baseball team in the home dugout, March 2010 UCSB baseball dugout.jpg
UCSB baseball team in the home dugout, March 2010

Few records exist from the start of Santa Barbara's baseball program. Through its different incarnations, Santa Barbara has fielded a team as early as 1922. The first known head coach is Kenneth Bolton, who coached in only the 1922 season before handing the reins to O. J. Gilliland in 1923. [3] C.J. Anderson, Ralph DeBolt, Henry Minetti, Lewis Peters, Arthur Peterson, Harold Sanford, Fred Seegert, Louis Sherril, William Thrasher, Linn Unkefer, and John Vince are the first known players and were listed on the 1923 team. [4]

Santa Barbara State Teachers College, as one of the precursors to the present day UC Santa Barbara, played in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference as far back as the 1932–33 season. [5] It is likely to have had even earlier teams in the SCIAC as records show Santa Barbara joined the conference in 1931. [6]

Santa Barbara's first reliable team of record can be traced back to 1947, then led by Spud Harder. Wearing multiple hats, Harder served as Santa Barbara's athletic director, head football coach, and head baseball coach. [7] The team played in the California Collegiate Athletic Association from at least 1947 until 1958 when it left to compete in the California Intercollegiate Baseball Association.

Roy Engle, a dual sport head coach in football and baseball [8] in the mold of Spud Harder, took over the program in 1952 and led the Gauchos to their first ever post-season berth. The Gauchos lost both games they played against the Fresno State Bulldogs baseball team by a combined score of 28-6.

Conference volatility

Rene Rochelle took over the program in 1954 and coached the team through the CCAA to CIBA transition. He spent 6 seasons as head coach before Dave Gorrie took the lead for the 1960 season.

Gorrie was at the helm for over 700 games in Gaucho blue and gold, and provided a bit of stability to the team as it bounced from conference to conference in the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout his 18 seasons as head coach, saw six league status changes. He endured through a rough start to his tenure, with the team compiling a 32–95 record in conference play his first seven seasons – the worst such stretch in Gaucho baseball history. A change in for the 1967,[ clarification needed ] going from CIBA competition to becoming an independent, marked the end of the slide. Independent ball lasted just one season with the Gauchos joining the West Coast Athletic Conference in 1968. The stay was short – just two seasons – before the Gauchos were on the move again.

Beginning with the 1970 season, the Gauchos competed in the Big West Conference through 1974. This period contained Gorrie's best season with the Gauchos - a 31–16 season which saw the Gauchos go 14–4 in Big West play, resulting in their second-ever NCAA post season berth. In the 1972 NCAA University Division baseball tournament, the Gauchos recorded their first-ever postseason wins against Santa Clara Broncos, before losing to eventual National Champions USC Trojans. It also marked the first time in UC Santa Barbara history that their baseball team was nationally ranked at the end of the season after being ranked 17th at the conclusion of the year. [9]

Andrew Checketts era

In the 2015 NCAA Division I baseball season, the Gauchos set a program record for wins en route to hosting their first ever NCAA Regional in the 2015 NCAA Division I baseball tournament. [10] Star pitcher Dillon Tate was drafted 4th overall in the 2015 Major League Baseball draft. [11]

The 2016 NCAA Division I baseball season saw the Gauchos build on their success. They were thought to be too young to compete at a high level for 2016 and placed 4th in the Big West Conference's preseason coaches' poll. [12] [13] UCSB advanced to the 2016 NCAA Division I baseball tournament with an at-large bid, then subsequently made NCAA Super Regional and NCAA College World Series appearances for the first time in the school's history. [12] [14] [15] Gaucho fans adopted a soccer chant commonly used at UC Santa Barbara Gauchos men's soccer games while in Omaha. [16]

The Gauchos returned to the NCAA tournament in 2019 by winning their first outright Big West regular season title with a record of 45-9, 19–5 in conference. [17] The Gauchos won 13 series over the entire season, only dropping 2 series all year. The team was drawn into the Stanford regional, and lost the opener 9–2 to Fresno State, and again lost 6–4 to Sacramento State, ending their season. [18]

UC Santa Barbara in the NCAA Tournament

YearRecordPctNotes
1972 3-3.500 District 8
1983 2–2.500 West I Regional
1986 1–2.333 West Regional
1987 0–2.000 West I Regional
1990 0–2.000 West II Regional
1996 0–2.000 West Regional
2001 1–2.333 South Bend Regional
2013 1–2.333 Corvallis Regional
2015 0–2.000Hosted Lake Elsinore Regional
2016 6–2.750 College World Series 5th Place, Louisville Super Regional Champions
2019 0–2.000 Stanford Regional
2021 2–2.500 Tucson Regional
2022 1–2.333 Stanford Regional
2024 2–2.500Hosted Santa Barbara Regional
TOTALS
19–29.396

Head coaching history

CoachYears
Kenneth Bolton1922
Otho J. Gilliland 1923–1926
Dudley DeGroot 1928–1929
Seldon Spalding 1929–1930
Harold Davis 1930–1936
Spud Harder 1936–1947
Joe Lantenge 1948
Spud Harder 1949–1951
Roy Engle 1951–1953
Rene Rochelle 1953–1959
Dave Gorrie 1959–1977
Mike Simpson 1978–1980
Al Ferrer 1981–1993
Bob Brontsema 1994–2011
Andrew Checketts 2012–present

Notable former players

This list of notable former players comprises players who went on to play professional baseball after playing for the team. Players denoted in bold represent MLB All-Stars. Players denoted in italics represent World Series Champions.

The Blue-Green Rivalry

The main rival of the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos baseball team is the Cal Poly Mustangs baseball team. The rivalry is a part of the larger Blue–Green Rivalry, which encompasses all sports from the two schools.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big West Conference</span> NCAA Division I collegiate athletic conference in the western United States

The Big West Conference (BWC) is an American collegiate athletic conference whose member institutions participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I. The conference was originally formed on July 1, 1969, as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA), and in 1988 was renamed the Big West Conference. The conference stopped sponsoring college football after the 2000 season.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UC Santa Barbara Events Center</span> University arena in California, U.S.A

UC Santa Barbara Events Center, previously known as the Campus Events Center, also known as The Thunderdome, is a 5,000-seat, indoor multi-purpose arena on the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara, California.

Robert Allen Williams is an American college basketball coach and the former head men's basketball coach at the UC Santa Barbara. He is sometimes referred to as the Dean of the Big West Conference's basketball coaches. He was previously the head coach at the UC Davis, winning the NCAA Men's Division II Basketball Championship in 1998. Williams is the all-time winningest coach at UC Santa Barbara with a 19-year record of 313–260.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UC Santa Barbara Gauchos</span> Collegiate sports club in the United States

The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos are the intercollegiate athletic teams who represent the University of California, Santa Barbara. Referred to in athletic competition as UC Santa Barbara or UCSB, the Gauchos participate in 19 NCAA Division I intercollegiate sports with the majority competing in the Big West Conference. UCSB currently fields varsity teams in 10 men's sports and 9 women's sports.

The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos men's soccer team is an NCAA Division I college soccer team composed of student-athletes attending the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Gauchos play their home matches at Harder Stadium. Like most of the other UC Santa Barbara Gauchos athletic teams, the men's soccer team competes in the Big West Conference.

Guillermo "Memo" Arzate is an American former professional soccer player.

Timothy Harold Vom Steeg is an American collegiate soccer head coach who is currently with the University of California, Santa Barbara men's soccer team. He has been with the Gauchos since 1999 and is the most successful coach in the history of UC Santa Barbara.

Dave Gorrie was a college baseball coach. He served as the head coach at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 1960 to 1978 and at Pepperdine University from 1979 to 1988. He coached the Pepperdine Wave to the 1979 College World Series, where they placed third. Gorrie finished his career as a private hitting instructor and a volunteer hitting coach at Panola Junior College in Carthage, Texas.

Andrew Checketts is an American college baseball coach and former player. He currently is the head coach of the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos.

The 2006 UC Santa Barbara Gauchos men's soccer team represented the University of California, Santa Barbara during the 2006 NCAA Division I men's soccer season. It was the 41st season of the team fielding a varsity college soccer team, and their 24th season playing in the Big West Conference.

The 2014–15 UC Santa Barbara Gauchos men's basketball team represented the University of California, Santa Barbara during the 2014–15 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Gauchos, led by 17th-year head coach Bob Williams, played their home games at the UC Santa Barbara Events Center, nicknamed The Thunderdome, as members of the Big West Conference. They finished the season 19–14, 11–5 in Big West play, to finish in a tie for second place. They advanced to the semifinals of the Big West tournament where they lost to UC Irvine. They were invited to the College Basketball Invitational where they lost in the first round to Oral Roberts.

The Blue–Green Rivalry is the name of the rivalry between athletic teams from the University of California, Santa Barbara (Gauchos) and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Mustangs). Athletic competition between the two schools began in the 1921 on the football field.

The 1969 UC Santa Barbara Gauchos football team represented University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) during the 1969 NCAA University Division football season.

The 1971 UC Santa Barbara Gauchos football team represented the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) as a member of the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA) during the 1971 NCAA University Division football season. Led by Andy Everest in his second and final season as head coach, the Gauchos compiled an overall record of 3–8 with a mark of 2–3 in conference play, tying for fourth place in the PCAA. The team played home games at Campus Stadium in Santa Barbara, California.

The 2018–19 UC Santa Barbara Guachos men's basketball team represented the University of California, Santa Barbara in the 2018–19 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Gauchos were led by second-year head coach Joe Pasternack and competed in The Thunderdome. UC Santa Barbara was a member of the Big West Conference, and participated in their 48th season in that league.

The 1989–90 UC Santa Barbara Gauchos men's basketball team represented the University of California, Santa Barbara during the 1989–90 college basketball season. They were led by head coach Jerry Pimm in his 7th season at UCSB. The Gauchos were members of the Big West Conference and played their home games at the UC Santa Barbara Events Center, also known as The Thunderdome.

Lin Loring is a former college tennis coach. He is the winningest head coach in NCAA Division I women's tennis history and was twice named national coach of the year. He started his collegiate coaching career with the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos and spent five decades with the Indiana Hoosiers. He was inducted into the ITA Women’s Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame.

The 2002 UC Santa Barbara Gauchos men's soccer team represented the University of California, Santa Barbara during the 2002 NCAA Division I men's soccer season. The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos were led by head coach Tim Vom Steeg, in his fourth season. For the first time in program history, the team became nationally ranked during the season and made the NCAA Tournament, advancing to the second round.

The 1987–88 UC Santa Barbara Gauchos men's basketball team represented the University of California, Santa Barbara during the 1987–88 college basketball season. They were led by head coach Jerry Pimm in his 5th season at UCSB. The Gauchos were members of the Pacific Coast Athletic Association and played their home games at the UC Santa Barbara Events Center, also known as The Thunderdome.

References

  1. ↑ "UCSB Color" . Retrieved December 5, 2022.
  2. ↑ "2014 Record Book" (PDF). UC Santa Barbara Gauchos. p. 19. Retrieved June 4, 2014.
  3. ↑ Stadtman, Verne A., ed. (1967). The Centennial Record of the University of California.
  4. ↑ "2014 Record Book" (PDF). UC Santa Barbara Gauchos. p. 19. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  5. ↑ "BASEBALL ALL-CONFERENCE TEAMS 1932 - 1989" (PDF). Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  6. ↑ "About the SCIAC". Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  7. ↑ Lehrmann, Rebecca (November 15, 2010). "Widow of Former Coach Passes". Daily Nexus. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  8. ↑ Williams, Jack (June 11, 2005). "Roy Engle, 87; coach was Hoover High sports hero". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved September 12, 2014.
  9. ↑ "Division I Baseball Records" (PDF). NCAA. p. 44. Retrieved September 16, 2014.
  10. ↑ Foley, Brian (January 28, 2016). "2016 Big West Preseason Poll". CollegeBaseballDaily.com. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
  11. ↑ "Rangers sign 1st-round draft pick Dillon Tate for $4.2M". Fox Sports . June 12, 2015. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
  12. 1 2 Mercado, Jorge (June 12, 2016). "Walk-Off Grand Slam Sends Gauchos To First Ever College World Series". Daily Nexus . Santa Barbara, California . Retrieved June 13, 2016.
  13. ↑ "Titans Selected To Repeat As Conference Champion". Big West Conference . January 28, 2016. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
  14. ↑ Mercado, Jorge (June 7, 2016). "Gauchos Defeat Xavier To Advance to First Super Regional in Program History". Daily Nexus . Santa Barbara, California . Retrieved June 13, 2016.
  15. ↑ Burke, Timothy (June 12, 2016). "UCSB Earns First CWS Trip With Walk-Off Grand Slam". Deadspin . Retrieved June 13, 2016.
  16. ↑ Nyatawa, Jon (June 22, 2016). "What's up with Santa Barbara's 'Ole' chant?". Omaha World-Herald . Omaha, Nebraska . Retrieved June 25, 2016.
  17. ↑ "UCSB Baseball Claims Big West Championship with Victory over Cal Poly". 26 May 2019.
  18. ↑ "2019 UCSB Baseball Schedule".
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