ALAMEDA — The formula is working so far in the new season: dominant starting pitching, strong arms out of the bullpen and consistent hitting. All of that has equaled two more victories as Stanislaus State swept Holy Names, 15-5 and 6-1, Sunday at the College of Alameda Baseball Field.
Jordan Kron struck out 11 batters,
Cody Kruip closed out the game on the mound, and the Warriors scattered 15 hits en route to the game one win. In the nightcap,
Micah Hall and
Tyler Murphy quiet the Hawks bats and
Kert Woods collected three more hits as the Warriors improve to 5-1.
Woods led the opportunistic offense with seven hits in the twinbill, going 4-for-5 with a double in game one and 3-for-4 with a double and triple in game two.
Kyle Nixon had five hits on the day, including a 4-for-6 first game.
Nick Ippolito and
Charlie Gaff each had three hits in the doubleheader.
Austin Fitzpatrick added a three-run bomb in the ninth inning of the early game to put an exclamation point on the game.
Ethan Utler drove in three runs, too.
In all, the Warriors sprayed 25 hits all over the place, including 10 extra base-hits.
On the mound, game one featured two aces and the previous week's respective conference pitchers of the week. Kron, CCAA's best hurler, out-dueled PacWest's top pitcher honoree Aiden McIntyre. Despite allowing more runs than McIntyre, Kron got the win and struck out 11 batters to improve to 2-0. Kron threw 6 2/3 innings and gave up five hits. In the final 2 1/3 innings, Kruip gave up just two hits and earned a save for getting the team out of the jam in the seventh with a 7-5 score.
Once the Warriors chased McIntyre after five innings, they went to work against the HNU bullpen. Stan State scored 12 runs in the final three innings to rout the Hawks.
In the nightcap, Hall threw a four-hit shutout over six innings before handing the ball over to Murphy. Murphy tossed the final three innings and fanned five batters for his first save.
The Warriors offense finally got to HNU starter Ricardo Torres in the sixth by scoring three runs. They chased Torres in the seventh and eventually scored twice to make it 5-0. Torres struck out 11 batters before being lifted with two outs in the seventh.
Nick Snyder led the Holy Names (2-4) offense with three hits on the day. He belted a two-run homer off Kron in the fourth inning.
The series shifts to Turlock for two games on Monday with the first pitch scheduled for 2 p.m.
