DAVIS, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball opened Big West play against UC Davis and the Spillane brothers matched up for a first time in their college careers with UCI and its center fielder, Luke, taking the win Friday afternoon, 10-1, at Swimley Field at Dobbins Stadium.

BIRTHDAY BATTLE
On top of the meeting between the siblings, UCI's Luke Spillane was also celebrating a birthday on Friday. His brother and UC Davis (5-10, 0-1) starting pitcher Jake Spillane greeted him rudely to start getting him to flyout to end the first inning.

Luke had the last laugh starting with his second at-bat in the third inning. With two outs, Spillane singled to left field scoring Nathan Church to make it a 2-0 Anteater lead. The final meeting was Luke's as well in the high-scoring fifth inning as Luke chopped a ball out in front of home plate resulting in an infield single as his brother was forced to field it and make an attempt to first not in time to get his brother

TWO TOUGH
Spillane was just one of a multitude of Anteaters (7-7, 1-0) that produced Friday through some competitive at-bats. All of UCI's 10 runs along with 13 of the season-high 18 hits came with two outs.

The biggest showing of this came in the fifth inning. After a strikeout, Spillane single, and groundout, the 'Eaters got the scoring started. Thomas McCaffrey singled to the opposite field to increase UCI's lead to 4-0 to start a barrage of six consecutive run-scoring hits. Jake Cosgrove continued the rally with his second double of the afternoon. Taishi Nakawake singled and proceeded to steal second. Connor McGuire, Nathan Church, and Mike Peabody each swatted opposite-field hits to keep the parade going in a six-run inning and put the Anteaters out of reach at 9-0

PITCHING PROWESS
Anteater starter Trenton Denholm did his part returning near his hometown while also returning to form. After allowing a single to leadoff the bottom of the first, he struck out the side to thwart the threat, and rode that momentum to his first quality start of the season going six innings allowing a single run on three hits with six strikeouts in all.

FINAL: UC IRVINE 10, UC DAVIS 1
The Anteaters put up a season high in hits with 18. Three Anteaters had three-hit games starting with Spillane and followed by Nathan Church and Jake Cosgrove. Church had a double and triple while scoring twice and driving in his 12th run of the year to lead the team. Spillane has tied Church for the season lead with a pair of stolen bases to give each five. Cosgrove reached five times scoring three times, doubling twice, and being hit by a pitch twice.

Every Anteater hitter had a hit with six producing multiple hits. Seven of the nine Anteaters drove in a run led by Connor McGuire with three out of the nine-spot including the Anteaters' first run in the second on a single and 10th run in the sixth on a bases loaded walk.

Denholm scored his first victory of the year, 16th as an Anteater. Andre Antone came on in relief for two scoreless innings, and Cameron Wheeler, fresh of his debut last weekend, closed things out in the ninth adding his first career strikeout.

UC Davis managed just four hits against the 'Eaters led by Jalen Smith with two of them and a stolen base. Spillane on the mound allowed 14 hits and nine runs, eight earned, to fall to 1-2. Reliever Andrew LaCour helped slow things down with four innings of work allowing a single run.

Thoughts from Head Coach Ben Orloff
"It's a really complete win in all three phases on the game. I thought Trenton threw the ball really good. I thought that zero in the first inning after Jalen leads off the game was big. We pitched it good - one run on four hits. Offensively, I thought we were really good. We used the big part of the field, had a bunch of two-out hits in a row to drive in runs, so that was a really complete performance and good to see."

"I thought we had really good focus today. We've talked as a group and I don't think our competitiveness offensively to sustain has been very good. We've been early a lot and made ourselves easy to pitch to. Today was not that, it was using the big part of the field, the opposite side of the field, and sustaining good at-bat over and over. We struck out three times today, good performance."

"Trenton threw the ball well. He keeps getting better every time out. Outside of a couple hitters, he threw the ball really well."

"I don't think there was too much about that. It was Luke's birthday today, that may have been the bigger story than him against his brother, but it was good to see him have a good day today on his birthday."

HEADING TO SATURDAY
The series continues with a doubleheader on Saturday starting at 12:00 p.m. Freshmen Nick Pinto and Zach Carrell take on each other in the first game with the second contest getting going after its conclusion with Michael Frias and Nolan Meredith taking the mound.