| Baseball |
|---|
| UCLA — 6 |
| Washington — 5 |
On Friday, May 15, No. 1 UCLA baseball (47-6, 27-2 Big Ten) faced off against the Washington Huskies (23-30, 12-17 Big Ten) in the Bruins’ final regular season series of the 2026 season, which resulted in the Bruins evening up the series.
In last week’s game against Oregon, coach John Savage said that he was “always looking for adversity” for the team, and to put them in stressful situations to prepare them better for the postseason. There was no game more stressful than today’s thriller.
The Bruins will look to take this competitive spirit and lessons from this game’s challenge into the postseason to try and compete for a College World Series title.
Starting today for the Bruins was senior pitcher Michael Barnett, who likely made the final regular season start of his collegiate career. He pitched 3.2 innings with three earned runs, six hits, two walks and three strikeouts — a decent final outing in college baseball.
The bullpen held the game down, only giving up two runs after Barnett’s outing, especially flamethrower junior pitcher Cal Randall, who had three strikeouts in 1.2 innings pitched.
In the first few innings of today’s game, the Bruins’ bats remained quiet — they were dominated by the Huskies’ Noah Kenney and Tommy Brandenburg, who only surrendered only two hits and struck out four on their combined outings.
But in the top of the sixth inning, the Bruins’ bats began to look alive. Junior center fielder Will Gasparino was the first baserunner of the inning, hitting a double to right center, setting the stage for freshman second baseman Aiden Aguayo.
On a 1-0 count, Aguayo crushed the middle-middle pitch to deep left field for a 358 foot home run, driving in himself and Gasparino to cut the lead to one and make it a 3-2 ballgame.
The Bruins then capitalized further on this scoring action during the eighth inning, with this being set up with walks by junior catcher Cashel Dugger, Aguayo and sophomore pinch hitter Kasen Khansarinia.
Senior left fielder Jarrod Hocking then hit a two-RBI single up the middle of the infield to score in Dugger and Aguayo, keeping the Huskies’ lead at one and staying alive.
It looked like the Bruins would be unable to pull off the comeback, especially in the top of the ninth. But if there is anything that can be learned from this year’s UCLA team, it is that the Bruins keep on fighting.
Two outs, down to his last pitch on a full count, Dugger hit a two-RBI double off of the Huskies’ Bryce Johnson to drive in junior pinch runner Phoenix Call to put the Bruins ahead 6-5.
This season, many of UCLA’s rallies and comebacks have come from having two outs — they demonstrated that clutch gene yet again today with the top of the ninth inning, tying up the game on what could have been the final pitch of the game.
UCLA then successfully closed out the game against the Huskies, with sophomore closing pitcher Easton Hawk coming in to close the game, ending the game with a score of 6-5.
What a thriller for UCLA — if the Bruins end up winning Saturday’s game, it will be a momentous occasion in that they have not lost a single regular season series during this incredible 2026 season.
The Bruins will look to win the series against Washington in their final game of the regular season as they take on the Huskies at Husky Ballpark on Saturday, May 16 at 12:05 p.m. PT.
