IRVINE, Calif. --- UC Irvine ace Andre Pallante was masterful over seven innings to give the 'Eaters a series-opening 7-1 win over CSUN Thursday night in Anteater Ballpark.

Late Arrivals
The Anteaters (23-9, 6-4) and Matadors (16-20, 4-6) both couldn't find the bats early being no-hit with just two baserunners between the two for five half innings. Andre Pallante and Wesley Moore were matching each other pitch-for-pitch which included identical second innings where they each walked the leadoff hitter before inducing a double play and getting the last out on a dropped third strike

Anteater Attack
The third inning things began to pick up with singles to start the frame for UCI by Mikey Filia and Griffin Mazur. A Sam Ireland sacrifice put them into scoring position allowing Jake Palmer to get one home on a groundout for the 1-0 lead. Brandon Lewis was intentionally walked setting the table for Adrian Damla who came through with two outs singling through the right side for a 2-0 UCI lead.

UCI got back to business in the fourth inning with singles from John Jensen and Filia to start things off. Griffin Mazur executed the sacrifice, and then singles from Ireland, scoring one, and Palmer, scoring two after an Ireland steal, opened up a 5-0 Anteater lead. Soft singles from Lewis and Damla loaded the bases before the final blow from Mike Peabody on a run-scoring grounder to knock starter Wesley Moore from the game and put UCI up 6-0 after four innings.

Pallante's Precision
The junior ace rolled right along near perfect through four innings before allowing his first base hit, a single to Sean Skelly, to leadoff the inning. The Matadors would bring a run around later in the frame to draw it to 6-1, but Pallante didn't let much else affect him cruising through seven innings and 99 pitches allowing the single run, three hits, and punching out nine Matadors

Final Score: No. 21 UC Irvine 7, CSUN 1
The Anteaters waged a balanced offensive attack with two-hit games from Damla, Jensen, Filia, and Ireland. Five 'Eaters had an RBI led by three from Palmer out of the leadoff spot. Jensen and Filia each scored twice with Jensen tacking on a triple and Filia stealing his fourth base of the season. Sam Ireland stole two bases while scoring and driving in a run. CSUN was held to four hits while striking out 12 times on the night

Pitchers of Record
Pallante improved to 6-3 on the year dropping his ERA to 2.63. His nine strikeouts moved him past Andrew Morales and Andrew Thurman on the all-time list now with 232 for his career, eighth-most in program history. Michael Frias mopped up with two scoreless innings striking out three. Theron Kay was CSUN's most effective arm closing the final 3.2 innings with just one hit and one walk among four strikeouts

Next Up
Game two starts up Friday, April 19, at 6:00 p.m. with a premier starting matchup of junior Tanner Brubaker (4-2, 2.47) and senior Isaiah Nunez (6-3, 3.17) squaring off.