Story Links


HATTIESBURG, Miss. — The UC Santa Barbara Baseball team gets its 2026 campaign underway on the road this weekend, taking on No. 20 Southern Miss for the first time ever, Friday, Saturday and Sunday before returning to California and renewing one of the most-played rivalries in program history with a Tuesday visit to Central Coast neighbors Pepperdine.
 
MEET THE 2026 GAUCHOS
Of the 43 student-athletes on the Gauchos’ 2026 roster, 21 are returners from the 2025 squad, headlined by Big West First Team pitcher and 2026 Golden Spikes Award candidate Jackson Flora, Freshman All-American pitcher Nathan Aceves and All-Big West honorees Jonathan Mendez, Xavier Esquer, Nate Vargas and Rowan Kelly. In the bullpen, Santa Barbara’s stopper, Cole Tryba, is back with extra hype after a strong summer in the elite Cape Cod League, and key relievers Raymond Olivas and Donovann Jackson are back there with him. Elsewhere on the diamond, senior Corey Nunez and sophomore Ian Fernandez are great defensive options on the infield and behind the plate respectively, and Cole Kosciusko is the team’s top returning base-stealer after going a perfect 9-for-9 last season.
 
There are also 22 new faces donning the Blue and Gold this season, headlined by seasoned Division-I players Nick Husovsky, Mitch Namie and Kellen Montgomery. Husovsky earned All-Midwest Region Second Team and All-MAC First Team honors at Ball State in 2025 and brings his .331 career batting average back to his home state. Over three years at New Mexico State, Namie put bat to ball nearly as well, maintaining a .328 average and earning Second Team All-Conference USA honors last season. As for Montgomery, the Gauchos are happy to have the Santa Barbara native on their side after three years of hitting against the former Long Beach State Dirtbag. He is slated to make his first start as a Gaucho on Sunday. The top of the freshman class for Santa Barbara is infielder Cade Goldstein, who is a strong candidate for an opening day start at second base.
 
2025 IN REVIEW
After finishing 36-17 in the regular season and 16-14 in conference action, Santa Barbara had to play in the play-in game of The Big West Championship as the no. 5 seed, falling to Hawai’i. Despite the disappointing end, there were strong points from that season which are expected to carry over into this one, helping create the consensus that Santa Barbara will bounce back in 2026. The Gauchos’ pitching staff was one of the best in the country, ranking 37th nationally in earned run average, 11th in hits allowed and 14th in strikeouts per nine innings and returns all but one key arm: that of Tyler Bremner, who became the highest-drafted player in program history when the Angels selected him second overall in the 2025 Major League Baseball Draft; he earned a non-roster invite to Spring Training this week. At the plate, returners Kelly, Mendez, Vargas and Esquer were all among the Gauchos’ top five hitters by average last season, with Vargas last year’s leader in RBIs and Mendez the same in home runs.
 
PRESEASON PREDICTIONS
Prognosticators are in agreement that the Gauchos should bounce back in 2026, with the only variance being in the height of the bounce. D1Baseball picked UC Santa Barbara to finish third in The Big West in its season preview, though they do expect the Gauchos to be one of three teams to represent the conference in the NCAA Tournament. The conference’s head coaches are even more optimistic, placing Santa Barbara at the top of their preseason poll; of the 10 Big West coaches who could give their first-place vote to the Gauchos, five did.
 
There are also a number of players picked to click across Santa Barbara’s lineup. The much-lauded Flora is foremost amongst them, earning a spot on The Big West Preseason Coaches’ Team, USA Baseball’s Golden Spikes Award Watchlist, and the Preseason All-America teams of both Perfect Game (who also ranked the Gauchos 21st in the country) and Baseball America. D1Baseball ranked Flora 18th in their preseason starting pitcher rankings, adding Calvin Proskey to the same list at no. 136. The publication gave Tryba even higher acclaim, anointing him as the ninth-best reliever in college baseball at the start of the season. And D1Baseball had praise for the left side of Santa Barbara’s infield too, ranking Mendez at no. 20 among all shortstops and Esquer 27th among all third basemen.
 
SCOUTING THE GOLDEN EAGLES
No. 20 Southern Miss is coming off a 2025 season in which they went 44-17, fell in the Sun Belt Championship to eventual College World Series Finalists Coastal Carolina and hosted an NCAA Regional. Their third-year head coach, Christian Ostrander, has won nearly three times as many games as he has lost in his first two seasons with the Golden Eagles, and he has a strong pitching staff at his disposal as well. USM’s projected Friday and Saturday starters both kept their ERA comfortably under four last season, with opening day man Colby Allen twice being named a Preseason All-American this year. Mainly a reliever in 2025, Allen was one of three Golden Eagles to earn Preseason All-Sun Belt honors in 2026, alongside catcher Tucker Stockman and outfielder Ben Higdon. Stockman and Higdon both batted better than .320 last season and contributed 13 of Southern Miss’ 106 home runs a year ago.  
 
SCOUTING THE WAVES
Pepperdine is looking to improve as they enter their second season under former Westmont head coach Tyler LaTorre. The Waves went 12-42 and finished last in the West Coast Conference, with a 7-17 record. Their leader, outfielder Nick Upstill, earned an all-conference honorable mention, but 2025 was his final season in Malibu. The Waves do return WCC All-Freshman honoree Danny Cook in their infield and have added two former Gauchos, pitcher Casey Euper and catcher Aidan Camberg, to their squad for 2026.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
The first pitch of the season is set for 2 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday, Feb. 13 from Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Game two of the weekend’s series with the Golden Eagles will begin at 10 a.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, Feb. 14, with the finale set for 11 a.m. Pacific Time on Sunday, Feb. 15. When the Gauchos visit the Waves in Malibu on Feb. 17, the first pitch will be at 1:30 p.m. All four games will be streamed live on ESPN+ with live stats available through ucsbgauchos.com.