Zander Darby had his best game since returning from injury and Aaron Parker hit his first home run in over a month to power the UC Santa Barbara Baseball team to victory over Hawai’i, 10-6, Saturday night.

The Gauchos scored in four of their eight innings at bat and never trailed, though a five-run sixth inning for Hawai’i did make things interesting. 

Jackson Flora extinguished that threat and went on to earn the win, with Matt Ager picking up his second save in as many opportunities.

“I thought we did a good job against Bodendorf (Hawai’i starter Harrison Bodendorf),” UCSB head coach Andrew Checketts said. “He was a Freshman All-American last year and he had his way with us at their place last year. Zander had the two big hits, left-on-left.

“The homer was really good, and then we let our guard down for an inning, gave them a couple free passes and hits, and the game started speeding up on us a little bit, but we were able to get it stopped.”

It was not the smoothest sailing for Gaucho starter Mike Gutierrez, as he had to work around traffic in every inning of work, but he did enough to keep the Rainbow Warriors off the board for the first five frames.

In contrast, Hawai’i’s starter cruised through his first two innings of work, facing the minimum.

Santa Barbara finally got on the board in the third, leading off the inning with three straight hits. Jessada Brown legged out an infield single, then Darby roped a triple all the way to the right field corner, scoring Brown.

Mendez followed him with a single into left to make it 2-0. The Gauchos kept going in the third, taking advantage of an opportunity handed to them by the visitors.

With two outs and a runner on third, Hawai’i elected to intentionally walk Brown to face Darby instead, wanting the typically pitcher-friendly left-on-left handedness matchup.

Darby proceeded to blast a three-run home run out to right field and make it a 5-0 ballgame.

Santa Barbara had the opportunity to score more but stranded the bases loaded in the fifth, as momentum started to swing toward Hawai’i.

The Rainbow Warriors really grabbed the momentum in the top of the sixth, scoring five runs on a double, two singles, two hit batters, two walks and a sacrifice fly, tying the game.

All five runs were charged to Gutierrez, and he was replaced by Flora, who ended the inning.

The Gaucho offense made sure the game did not stay tied for long, delivering clutch hits to re-take the lead in the bottom of the sixth.

Mendez’s two-out single extended the inning for Parker, who launched his third home run of the season to left center, putting Santa Barbara back ahead, 7-5. Consecutive two-out doubles from Jonah Sebring and Justin Trimble made it 8-5 in the seventh.

Hawai’i did get one run back in an ugly eighth inning that included an error, two walks and another hit batter, but Ager relieved Flora and extinguished that fire. Even more two-out hitting earned the Gauchos a pair of insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth. 

Reiss Calvin pinch-ran for Parker after his single, then scored on a bloop hit from Brendan Durfee, who made it all the way to third as the throw home missed both the cut-off man and the catcher. 

Ivan Brethowr reached on a throwing error by the Hawai’i third baseman, allowing Durfee to score safely. Ager did surrender a lead-off single to start the ninth, but a pair of groundouts and a strikeout ended the game.

“It was fun to see Ager at the back end of the game, he was a Freshman All-American doing that his first year here,” Checketts said. “That was something that he’s got the transition, the ability to do that. He’s not having the year he wants, but to come out and get those last couple outs was big for us and big for him.”

With his two strikeouts on Saturday night, Matt Ager becomes one of UC Santa Barbara’s top 10 pitchers of all time in career strikeouts, with 196. He is currently ninth, tied with Justin Jacome.

Mike Gutierrez is now one strikeout away from joining Ager on the top 10 career K list; he had three on Saturday to bring his career tally as a Gaucho up to 194.

Aaron Parker’s sixth-inning home run ended a 17-game homer-less stretch for the Gaucho backstop, the longest long-ball drought of his career.

Saturday was Aaron Parker’s team-leading 13th multi-hit game of the season. He has at least one hit in all but one of his games this year.

UC Santa Barbara and Hawai’i will wrap up this three-game series on Sunday, April 14, with first pitch now set for 3:05 p.m. as more rain is set to come through Santa Barbara overnight.

Any further updates will be posted to ucsbgauchos.com and the team’s social media accounts.