Colton Hock closed out a win for the 14th time this season -- a new school record -- and Duke Kinamon hit his second home run to lead Stanford to a 4-0 win over the University of San Francisco. Stanford (31-13) is finding ways to win a variety of ways, which you would expect from a team in the midst of winning 12 of 13 games. Two days after losing a chance to sweep Arizona State, the Cardinal remained perfect in Tuesday games with a shutout of a capable Dons squad. "When we haven't really hit, we've pitched well," said head coach Mark Marquess about the Cardinal's winning ways. "In a hitters ballpark (at ASU) we got out to a lead in both games and got a big lead in the second game. Then they got the big lead in the last game. In Oregon we hit the ball well and I didn't think we swung the bats well against Arizona, but we pitched superbly against them. We've played really good defense for the most part. We've won a lot of close games and Colton Hock has saved them." The Cardinal got six innings from freshman Erik Miller and he pitched around a few stretches of control issues to allow only two hits and two walks. Tyler Thorne went 1 2/3 innings before Hock came in with the bases loaded to finish a four-out save.

It's those type of sink-or-swim situations that Hock said he didn't always "come out alive" when he was a freshman or sophomore. But Marquess and pitching coach Rusty Filter routinely put him in difficult positions and watched him mature into a confident closer. "He lost some tough games as a freshman and sophomore," Marquess said. "Those experiences really helped him. And he probably could be a really good starter. He affects so many more games as a closer for us. That's even better than a starter." Hock is 5-1 in addition to his 14 saves and has a .194 opponents batting average in 38 1/3 innings. He wasn't thinking of making history before or during the game. "We realize as a team that this is the most important game of the year at this point," he said. "Tuesday games are critical and are must-win situations. The fact that this team can go out there with a stressful work environment with school winding down and guys graduating ... and put together a good nine innings -- Erik did a great job and Tyler did a great job. That just means so much, and that's all I can think about right now." It was a fast game through five innings with neither team accomplishing much in the batter's box. Stanford broke through in the six when Jack Klein hit a two-out single to score Daniel Bakst, who hit a double with one out.

Then Kinamon provided the power display in the seventh.