CARSON — Nearly seven and a half hours of baseball later, Cal State Stanislaus and Cal State Dominguez Hills battled for a California Collegiate Athletics Association doubleheader split today at Toro Field.

The Warriors used a five-run fourth and pounded out 13 hits to win game one 9-3 before dropping a 9-8 nail-bitter in eight innings in the nightcap. The split gave CSUDH the series advantage 2-1 heading into Sunday's finale.

Jeff Bellotti's double down the right field line in the fifth inning of the opener highlighted a five-run frame for Cal State Stanislaus as the Warriors took a 5-1 lead en route to the win. Stanislaus (26-15, 18-9 CCAA) would score twice in each of the fifth and sixth innings for the final margin of victory.

Marquis Fleming labored for 6 2/3 innings and threw 129 pitches to pick up the win and improved to 8-3 on the year. The CSUS ace allowed three runs on eight hits while striking out four and walking four.

Five Warriors — Bellotti, Kyle Loretelli, Jacob Thelen, Jake Oketani and David Contreras — each had two hits. Of the 13 Warrior hits, Bellotti's double was the only extra-base safely. Leandor Dottavio and Tom Long joined Bellotti as they each drove in two scores.

With Cal State Dominguez Hills (19-26, 15-12 CCAA) rallying in the ninth, with the bases loaded and nobody out, CSUS head coach Kenny Leonesio brought in his most reliable reliever Andrew DeMott. DeMott promptly got an infield fly out, strike out and a line out to end the game to preserve the victory.

In the nightcap, the Toros carried a 6-1 lead through five by scoring in every inning, but the Warriors bat went to work in the top of the sixth. After Jeff Hughes scored on a Long single to center, Loretelli belted a grand slam home run to right field to key a six-run frame for CSUS. Oketani drove in Dante Palacios with a triple to give the Warriors a 7-6 lead.

CSUDH went back on top 8-7 with a two-run pinch-hit homer by Phillip Van Doren, but Long would come up big again on a long day with a game-tying double that scored pinch-runner Dennis Wolfe to eventually extend the scheduled seven-inning game into extra innings.

DeMott, who entered the game after the Van Doren home run, picked up the pieces in the sixth and tossed a solid seventh before walking Carlos Leyva to start the CSUDH eighth inning. Two outs and a walk to Van Doren later, DeMott appeared to have gotten out of the inning when with a grounder to second.

Oketani had to charge in on the slow grounder with Cody Puckett speeding down the line but was not able to make the play as the game-winning run scored.

In the end, Long went 3-for-4 with three RBIs in the nightcap to cap off a four hit day. Loretelli was 2-for-3 with 4 RBIs and also finished with four hits in the twinbill.

Game one of today's doubleheader, which started at 11 a.m., lasted 3 hours and 37 minutes with the nightcap going 3:10 with the last out recorded at 6:20 p.m.