TURLOCK — Tyler Murphy threw an absolute gem against one of the best hitting teams in the CCAA and Erik Colombini homered as Stanislaus State opened the conference season with a 3-1 win over Cal State East Bay.

Murphy, who rebounds from a bad outing last week, shut down a solid Pioneers hitting team as the Warriors improved to 8-3 overall and 1-0 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association. Murphy threw 8 1/3 innings and gave up just a run — that run came in the ninth inning — to improve to 2-0.

Stanislaus State improved to 7-0 at home this season and snapped a five-game losing streak to Cal State East Bay.

Colombini's solo dinger in the sixth and a run scoring double down the left field line by Aldo Koutsoyanopulos that scored Scott Stetson to make it 3-0. 

That was all the runs Murphy needed. While he was not dominating with the strikeouts, Murphy threw strikes and relied on the defense. At one point in the game Murphy retired 13 batters in a row. He recorded 15 flyouts with seven to center plus six groundouts. Freshman Micah Hall inherited two baserunners with one out in the ninth but prompty earned his second save with a strikeout and a pop-up to secure the win.



The pitching dual between Murphy and Alex Vesia turned the game into a clean, quick contest that lasted just two hours and 12 minutes.

Except for the Warrior sixth and a fifth inning when a CSUEB fielding error gaved Stan State a run, Vesia had a decent outing, too. The lefty gave up three runs on six hits and struck out six in seven innings of work.

Stetson ended up 2-for-3 with two runs scored. Michael Chavarria went 1-for-3 with a double that missed being a homer by about a foot off the short left field wall.

The series switches to Hayward for the middle two games of the four-game on Saturday with game one starting at 11 a.m.