Spartan freshman righthander Matt Durkin delivers a pitch during SJSU's 9-2 defeat of Cal Berkeley on Tuesday night. Krysti La Tour / Daily Staff
Durkin tossed eight shutout innings en route to earning his 10th win of the season in the Spartans 9-2 victory over Cal Berkeley (29-27) on Tuesday night at Municipal Stadium.
The Spartans (42-15) wasted no time in getting on the board.
Second baseman Gabe Lopez singled home center fielder Dino Quintero to give SJSU a 1-0 lead.
The RBI was Lopez's 57th of the season, a team-high.
The Spartans began to add to their lead inning-by-inning beginning in the fourth.
Shortstop Ryan Adams singled to left field to score third baseman Kevin Frandsen from second base for a 2-0 lead.
SJSU continued to batter Golden Bears pitching in the fifth inning when left fielder Nathan Corrick tripled down the right field line, scoring right fielder Travis Becktel for a 3-0 lead.
The Spartans assumed complete control of the contest in the sixth inning.
Frandsen lead off the inning hitting an 0-2 pitch off of Cal reliever Creighton Kahoali over the left field wall for his sixth home run of the season.
"He threw me two sliders and I looked for one more," Frandsen said. "He hung the third one and I just drove it."
SJSU scored two more runs in the inning on wild pitches by Kahoali and reliever Matt Payne.
All the while, Durkin was dominating Cal batters.
After allowing a lead-off base hit in the first inning to Bears center fielder David Nicholson, Durkin didn't allow another hit until there was one out in the seventh innings, a stretch of 19 outs without allowing a hit.
Durkin's evening was finished after eight innings when he wiggled out of a two-man on, two-out jam by getting Cal catcher John Baker to fly out to Corrick.
Durkin threw 129 pitches on the night in improving to 10-2 on the season.
"When we recruited him we felt that he was going to be good," Spartan head coach Sam Piraro said. "But if you would have told me he'd have 10 wins right now, I'd have you drug tested. He's really been a boost to the team this year."
The Spartans scored three more times off of Cal relievers to push the score to 9-0 heading into the ninth inning.
Cal scored two runs off of Spartan reliever Don Gemmell when shortstop Nick Medrano hit a two-out double off the left field wall scoring teammates Noah Jackson and Justin Nelson.
Gemmell retired Nicholson for the final out of the game and the Spartans had their 42nd win of the season.
The 42 wins puts SJSU one win away from tying a school record of 43 wins set in 1990.
"All wins are big wins and we are just taking it one game at a time," Piraro said. "This was a really big one because it's a Pac-10 win. Whenever we play one of those teams, it's a game for us to prove ourselves."