The UCLA baseball team, ranked No. 1 in the nation, is set to host No. 7 TCU for a three-game series at Jackie Robinson Stadium starting Friday, February 20. The opening game will be broadcast nationally on FS1 with Chris Sylvester and Wes Clements providing commentary. Saturday and Sunday’s games will air on B1G+ with Nick Koop and Sid Iyer calling the action.
UCLA begins the season as the top-ranked team according to D1Baseball.com and comes off a strong 2025 campaign that included its sixth College World Series appearance and fourth under Head Coach John Savage. The Bruins advanced through postseason play by sweeping their way into the College World Series and took two out of three games from UC San Diego during opening weekend.
Key player Mulivai Levu leads UCLA in hitting with a .529 average, one home run, and six RBIs so far this season. Roch Cholowsky and Will Gasparino have each hit three home runs in the first four games. Last year, UCLA was selected as the No. 15 national seed and hosted its first NCAA Super Regional since 2019, marking its seventh super regional berth overall.
Roch Cholowsky received multiple honors last season including Big Ten Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, First Team All-Conference selection, First Team All-American recognition from four outlets (ABCA/Rawlings, BA, D1B, PG), and won the Brooks Wallace Award as the nation’s top shortstop. “Cholowsky also won the Brooks Wallace Award, honoring him as the nation’s top shortstop.” According to data compiled by 643 charts, Cholowsky led Division I in wins-above-replacement (WAR) at 6.49 in 2025.
UCLA finished last season with a share of the Big Ten Conference regular-season title after winning eight out of ten conference series. The team posted a fielding percentage of .982—seventh nationally—and went undefeated in all series played at Jackie Robinson Stadium with an overall home record of 31-7.
Dean West broke UCLA’s single-season hit-by-pitch record with 22 last year while Michael Barnett ranked third nationally with twelve wins on the mound.
The Bruins’ lineup returns most of its core players for this season; they bring back approximately 83 percent of their total production from last year—including about 85 percent of plate appearances and nearly four-fifths of innings pitched—making them one of college baseball’s most experienced teams.
In preseason accolades from Baseball America, junior shortstop Roch Cholowsky was named Preseason Player of the Year while junior first baseman Mulivai Levu made Third Team All-America. Both were listed on this year’s Golden Spikes Award Preseason Watch List along with pitcher Logan Reddemann who appeared on D1Baseball’s Preseason Pitcher of the Year Watch List.
UCLA powered past Tulane earlier this week by a score of 13-5 behind multi-homer performances from Cholowsky and Gasparino; freshman Zach Strickland earned his first collegiate win after pitching three scoreless innings in relief.
For TCU, returning stars Sawyer Strosnider—a rare triple-double achiever as a freshman—and ace Tommy LaPour headline an experienced roster that returned to NCAA Tournament play last year after missing out previously.
Projected pitching matchups for UCLA include Logan Reddemann (Friday), Michael Barnett (Saturday), and Landon Stump (Sunday). Their opponents are Mason Brassfield (Friday), Lance Davis (Saturday), and Uli Fernsler (Sunday) for TCU.
