{"id":261502,"date":"2026-04-10T19:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/261502\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T19:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:29:09","slug":"gauchos-head-to-long-beach-for-pivotal-matchup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/261502\/","title":{"rendered":"Gauchos Head to Long Beach for Pivotal Matchup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                &#13;<br \/>\n                    Story Links&#13;<br \/>\n                    &#13;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 The UC Santa Barbara softball team travels to Long Beach this weekend for a Big West series against Long Beach State. The teams will play a doubleheader on Saturday, Apr. 11 with the first game starting at 3 p.m., followed by a single game on Sunday, Apr. 12, at 12 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>ABOUT LAST WEEK<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nOver the weekend, the Gauchos won their series, taking two of three games against Hawai&#8217;i. UC Santa Barbara got key contributions from multiple players throughout the weekend. <a href=\"https:\/\/ucsbgauchos.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/sophia-clark\/7666\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"7666\" target=\"_blank\">Sophia Clark<\/a> was dominant in the circle, pitching 8.1 innings, striking out five and not allowing a single run to score. <a href=\"https:\/\/ucsbgauchos.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/ella-myers\/7667\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"7667\" target=\"_blank\">Ella Myers<\/a> came through in the clutch in game three with a go-ahead two-run home run. <a href=\"https:\/\/ucsbgauchos.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/dani-rauscher\/7669\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"7669\" target=\"_blank\">Dani Rauscher<\/a> was consistent all weekend, going 9-for-11 (0.818) at the plate with a double and earning The Big West Field Player of the Week.<\/p>\n<p>SCOUTING LONG BEACH STATE<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nLong Beach State enters the weekend in a three-way tie for third in the conference standings, while the Gauchos are tied with Cal State Fullerton for first place. The Beach are currently 21-16 and 9-6 in Big West play.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Long Beach State is hitting .298 as a team, with four players batting above .340. Lina Apodaca leads the team with a .374 average, and Avery Weisbrook is hitting .354 while leading the nation in assists in the field. Nina Sepulveda, a two-time Big West Freshman of the Week, leads the team in RBIs with 34 while also going 9-for-11 in stolen bases.<\/p>\n<p>Long Beach State has posted some quality wins during the season, including an upset over No. 4 Oklahoma and going 4-1 at the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Coming into the weekend, Long Beach holds a team ERA of 4.27, but three of their arms currently hold a sub-3.00 earned run average. Isabella Alonso has pitched the majority of the Beach&#8217;s innings, accounting for roughly a third of the total innings. Jailynn Banda and Lindsey Cowans sit behind Alonso, each with 42 innings under their belt.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>FOLLOW ALONG<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nSaturday&#8217;s doubleheader begins at 3 p.m., and Sunday&#8217;s game is set for noon. There will be no stream available for the games, but live stats will be available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; Story Links&#13; &#13; LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 The UC Santa Barbara softball team travels to Long Beach&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-261502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}