FULLERTON, Calif. --- Premium pitching stole the show Thursday night at Goodwin Field, and Cal State Fullerton had just a little bit more than UC Irvine taking a 2-0 win to open the weekend series.
LETHAL LEFTIES
Nick Pinto and Tyler Stultz brought their A-games to the diamond pitching deep into the night in their final starts of 2022.
Pinto held the Titans (21-32, 13-15) down through the first two innings before an error in the third led to the game's first run, unearned on Pinto's ledger as he trailed 1-0. He bounced back picking up strikeouts in five of the innings he pitched going 6.2 on the night. The redshirt sophomore racked up seven strikeouts including three looking to up his Big West lead in that category to 31 on the year.
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Stultz on the other side was in the zone working around a handful of hits and walks over the first seven innings of work. The Anteaters got a pair on in the eighth, but he dialed up two more strikeouts for 11 on the night and held off more Anteater scoring.
FINAL SCORE: CAL STATE FULLERTON 2, UC IRVINE 0
The 'Eaters' last chance in the ninth started with a pair of hits, but a sacrifice bunt attempt to move them into scoring position resulted in the lead runner out. Stultz's night ended there after 134 pitches giving way to Peyton Jones to get a strikeout and lineout to end the game.
Pinto again took a hard-luck defeat allowing just one earned run over 6.2 innings. His seven strikeouts pushed him into the top 20 all-time in program history now at 17th with 195 in his career as he surpassed Christian Bergman, Blair Erickson, and Craig Brink on Thursday night alone.
Gordon Ingebritson did his part as well with 1.1 innings of shutout relief including a clever pickoff to end the eighth inning.
UCI's bats were limited to six hits with three off the bat of
Abraham Garcia-Pacheco.
Justin Torres added one as well for his 100th career hit as an Anteater.
UCI was shutout for just the third time all season, all coming in Big West contests. The series continues on Friday night with a 6:00 p.m. first pitch between
David Vizcaino and Evan Yates.
Postgame Thoughts from head coach Ben Orloff
"Pinto threw the ball well and gave us a chance to win. They got a couple two-strike hits that scored their runs but he threw the ball well. Their guy was tough; multiple pitches for strikes, moved the ball, gave us a lot of trouble."
"We struck out 12 times and on a Thursday night game where their guy's throwing well, you don't get that many opportunities. We had a couple chances and weren't able to get the big hit or execute and come up on the short side of 2-0."
