LOS ANGELES – Saint Mary's Baseball will take on their first WCC opponent of the season when they travel down to Los Angeles to face Loyola Marymount University for a three-game set this weekend. After that they'll return home for a single game against UC Santa Barbara this coming Tuesday, who is ranked No. 30 in the nation according to Collegiate Baseball.
 
THE DETAILS
Saint Mary's (14-3) at LMU (3-12-1)
March 18-20, Page Stadium – Los Angeles
Friday: 6:00 pm  (Watch | Live Stats)
Saturday: 6:00 pm (Watch | Live Stats)
Sunday: 1:00 pm (Watch | Live Stats)

Saint Mary's (14-3) vs. UC Santa Barbara (10-4)
Louis Guisto Field – Moraga, CA
Tuesday, March 22 at 3:00 p.m. (Watch | Live Stats)

LAST TIME OUT
Saint Mary's Baseball again struck early offensively and got 5.1 innings from Jackson Hulett in a 9-5 win over Charleston Southern in a seven-inning game on Monday.
 
The Gaels wasted no time attacking the Bucs as Chris Santiago doubled to left with runners at second and third to score Christopher Campos and Nick Mistone. They struck again in the top of the second when Nathan Chong drove in Seth Nager for a 3-0 Gaels lead.
 
SMC tacked on a couple more runs when Coleman Schmidt scored on a wild pitch in the third and Campos scored on a wild one in the fourth. But the big blow came later in the fourth again off the bat of Santiago when he blasted a home run to straight-away center to score McDonald and Chong to make it 8-0 Gaels.
 
Hulett got the win to improve to 2-0 on the year and had just a bumpy fourth inning in a good outing overall. He allowed four earned runs on five hits with no walks and five Ks in his 5.1 innings.
 
Santiago went 2 for 4 with 5 RBI and two runs scored, Campos went 3 for 5 with two runs scored, Mistone walked three times, and Chong went 3 for for 5 with two runs scored and an RBI.  

ADDITIONAL NOTES
Saint Mary's will allow fans in for free this season to Gaels baseball games as construction on the new stadium seating will take place this season.
 
ABOUT LMU
Head Coach Nathan Choate, in his third year at the helm, returns 20 players from last season's squad while welcoming 15 new Lions to LMU.
 
Infielders Diego Baqueiro and Benny Casillas were tabbed by D1Baseball as top prospects for the 2023 Major League Baseball draft while newcomer Michael Nunez was picked as an Impact Freshmen.
 
Baqueiro is the Lions returning leader in batting average, hits, and RBI. Casillas, a transfer from El Camino College slashed .309/.404/.383 during his freshman season for the Warriors. Nunez, a graduate of Bishop Alemany, was a three-year varsity letter winner while also being First Team All-Mission League as a senior.
 
The Lions and the Gaels have been on similar paths in recent seasons. They each have a head coach in their third season, and met in the WCC finals in 2019 with LMU squeaking out a 4-2 win in extra innings in the conference Championship. LMU would go on to defeat Baylor in the NCAA Regionals, before falling to No. 1 UCLA in three games that season. The Lions won the season series against the Gaels in 2021 by taking two of three games and have a 30-14 advantage over SMC going back to 2007.
 
ABOUT UC SANTA BARBARA
The Gauchos were 41-20 overall last season with a 29-11 conference mark to finish second and earn an at-large bid into the NCAA postseason, and began the season ranked No. 17 overall by Collegiate Baseball.
 
The Big West Conference Preseason Baseball Coaches' Poll tabbed UCSB to finish third in the conference standings. They trailed only first-place Long Beach State which led the way with 97 points and seven first-place votes and UC Irvine which placed second with 92 points and three first-place votes in the preseason poll.

Sophomore shortstop Jordan Sprinkle was named to the USA Baseball preseason Golden Spikes Award watch list. The award is given annually to the top amateur baseball in the country for the 2022 season.

Last year sprinkle led the conference and ranked in the top-20 in the country with 26 stolen bases. He became a starter 10 games into the season, and collected at least one hit in 44 of the Gauchos last 52 games. He ranked second in the conference with 83 hits, the 9th most by any Big West freshman all-time, as well as ranking third in runs (55), fourth in doubles (18), and fifth in batting average (.353).

Three different Gauchos were given preseason All-America nods coming into the 2022 season as Collegiate Baseball named Sprinkle, Cory Lewis, and Carter Benbrook as Third Team All-Americans. Additionally, Sprinkle was named a Second Team All-American by Baseball America.
 
The Gaels and Gauchos last met in May of 2019 in a 6-3 win for UCSB. Saint Mary's had won the previous meetings before that, and the Gauchos hold just an 8-7 series lead going back to 2008.
 
#GaelsRise