NORTHRIDGE, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball turned things around behind Michael Stanford's brilliant pitching performance to win, 10-2, Saturday afternoon at Matador Field.

The sixth-year pitcher was on his game replicating his seven shutout innings from a week ago taking another shutout into the eighth. After allowing the first three runners to reach in the eighth, a groundout would bring home the first CSUN (28-16, 14-9) run. Stanford still managed 7.1 innings on just 82 pitches striking out three and scattering seven hits for his fifth win of the season and third quality start.

"That performance meant a lot for us," head coach Ben Orloff praised of senior Michael Stanford. "That is what he is - three pitches for strikes, constant mix, competitiveness, when he's really good like he has been recently, it's great to watch."

The offense for UCI (32-15, 13-10) put up consistent runs starting with one in the first. The Anteaters forced in their first three runs all on fielder's choices to lead 3-0 after three innings. Dub Gleed then added some pop with a two-run home run in the fifth, and Anthony Martinez blasted a three-run home run in the seventh giving him a homer in three straight games to really pile on. Two more unearned runs in the eighth capped UCI's day for it's third straight game with 10 or more runs.

"This is how we've played a majority of the season - really good defense and the offense is hard to pitch to. There's always a big inning around the corner, we played from ahead, scoring in five innings."

The 10-2 victory is a much-needed result for UCI that is hanging on for a postseason spot and still looking up a teams in the Big West standings. The offense was pushed and pulled by the three and four hitters, Martinez and Gleed, who each homered in addition to Martinez's seventh 4-hit game of the year and three RBIs and Gleed driving home a career-high five on just one hit. The team only needed nine hits to produce on Saturday, but made them count including Caden Kendle contributing two infield singles and scoring three times.

The series finale comes up Sunday with everything to play for for both sides.

"It's another playoff-type of guy, we've played in a lot of these and we've earned the right to be here. This is what this deal is, we've got a chance to win a series on Sunday with Pinto whose capable of doing the same thing Stanford did for us today."

Nick Pinto and Jon Mocherman square off as a pair of lefties and Pinto coming off Big West Pitcher of the Week honors. It will also be the first game of the weekend televised with fans able to tune in on ESPN+ along with KUCI 88.9 FM radio broadcast.