On Thursday night at Jackie Robinson Stadium, No. 1 UCLA opened its rivalry series against No. 12 USC by scoring seven runs in the eighth inning and pulling away to a 12-4 win. It was the Bruins' 21st consecutive victory. One more ties the program record set to open the 2010 season. The 2026 team, at 27-2 overall and 13-0 in Big Ten play, appears fully capable of breaking it.
This is not a team that has beaten up on weak competition and padded its record. The wins include a sweep of then-No. 7 TCU, a victory over No. 4 Mississippi State in a neutral-site tournament championship, and a series against No. 23 Texas A&M. In late March, the Bruins swept Iowa in three games, outscoring the Hawkeyes 38-8 across the series, including a 19-0 run-rule victory in the middle game. The numbers are not being manufactured. The opponents have been real.
The engine of the offense is Roch Cholowsky, the junior shortstop from San Diego who is the consensus projected No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 MLB Draft. Cholowsky is hitting .368 with a .500 on-base percentage and a .868 slugging percentage. His 10 home runs and 31 RBIs in 29 games place him among the best hitters in the country at any level of college baseball, and his defense at shortstop has drawn equally strong reviews. He won Big Ten Player of the Week in mid-March after going 8-for-13 with two home runs and nine RBIs in a seven-day stretch. Against USC Thursday, he was a part of the eighth-inning rally that turned a tied game into a rout.
The pitching has been equally dominant. Wylan Moss, a sophomore right-hander, carries a 0.35 ERA across 26 innings this season, with 35 strikeouts against six walks. Logan Reddemann, a transfer from the University of San Diego, is 7-0 with a 2.72 ERA and was on the preseason Pitcher of the Year watch list before he threw a single pitch in a UCLA uniform. The bullpen features two closers, Easton Hawk and Cal Randall, both of whom are on the NCBWA Stopper of the Year watchlist. Senior Finn McIlroy, recovering from Tommy John surgery, is targeting a return later this spring, which would add depth to a staff that already has very little weakness.
Head coach John Savage, now in his 22nd season in Westwood, has spoken often about roster construction as the foundation of the team's success. Twenty-nine of the 30 players on the active roster are from Southern California. That geographic identity shapes the culture of the program in ways that are difficult to quantify but visible in how the team plays in close games, when composure matters as much as ability.
For UCLA students, the timing of this run is worth paying attention to. The Bruins enter their first full Big Ten season at 13-0 in conference play, a mark that positions them as a heavy favorite for the No. 1 national seed in the NCAA Tournament. Jackie Robinson Stadium, named for the Bruin who played four varsity sports on this campus before breaking the color barrier in professional baseball, is the backdrop for a team that is doing something that has not been done here in a long time. The USC series continues Friday and Saturday. Tickets are available through UCLA Athletics. Show up.