AZUSA, Calif. -- In past years, senior righthander Matt Stone might not have realized the type of game he was having, but not this year. Not with the facility's brand-new scoreboard emblazoning bright orange zeroes directly into his visual path to the mound each inning for his warmup tosses as he carried a no-hitter all the way into the seventh inning Tuesday night at the Cougar Baseball Complex. Despite surrendering a pair of 2-out hits in that seventh inning, Stone collected the win and helped the NAIA’s No. 8-ranked Azusa Pacific post a 10-0 win over La Verne for its first 9-inning home shutout in a regular-season game in over 2 years.

“To be honest, I was thinking about it after the third inning or so,” Stone said. “I just started thinking, ‘What if?’ ”

“You try not to think about it even though it’s always there. You just try to let it go and focus on the next pitch, keeping the ball down and hitting the right spots.”

After hitting the second batter of the game, Stone retired 19 straight La Verne batters and was 1 pitch away from his 20th straight out when Leopards catcher Mike Surina pulled a 1-2 slider to left-center a few feet beyond the reach of senior leftfielder Stephen Gillette’s full-sprint dive into the gap, breaking up the no-hit bid.

“I was trying to be too fine with it,” Stone said. “I just threw a slider and left it up a little too much, and he hit it well. “

Stone surrendered an infield single to Jon-Michael Hattabaugh that advanced Surina to third, but he finished the frame without surrendering a run. He finished with a 7-inning line of 2 hits, no walks and 4 strikeouts before giving way to junior reliever Ryan Rosenhahn, who fired 2 scoreless innings to complete the combined shutout.

The shutout was Azusa Pacific’s second of the season, with the first coming in the opening game of a doubleheader sweep at Concordia Feb. 14, and it is the ninth game in which the Cougars have given up 3 or fewer runs.

“We know he’s capable of it,” Cougar head coach Paul Svagdis said. “We saw it last year a few times in his weekday starts, so we know he has good enough stuff to do that. It’s something we needed to see, because we’ve talked about needing to have quality starts and having someone step up and be a leader for us in that area. He did a great job of that today, and he really set the tone for our pitching staff.”

The Azusa Pacific offense was led by junior first baseman Brice Cutspec, who hit his NAIA-leading 13th and 14th home runs and finished 3-for-3 in the contest. Cutspec led off the second inning with a solo home run to the deepest part of the ballpark in straightaway center field, setting off the first of 5 2-run innings for the Cougars. Cutspec added a 2-run, 2-out shot in the sixth inning to push the lead to 8-0, giving him 6 home runs in the past 6 games, a stretch in which he has gone 13-for-19 (.684) with 15 of his GSAC-leading 33 RBIs.

“I think Brice has a very simple approach and is trusting the fact that he’s a good hitter,” Svagdis said. “He’s got a great swing and a good eye, but his plan is getting more consistent. I think he’s seeing the results of that, and we’re reaping the benefits of it as a team.”

Sophomore rightfielder Virgil Chavira was also 3-for-3 with a pair of extra-base hits, collecting doubles in each of his first 2 at-bats before driving in a run with a fifth-inning single. Chavira is also swinging a hot bat, going 18-for-37 with 9 extra-base hits and 10 runs over the past 10 games.

With the win, Azusa Pacific improves to 16-3 on the season, while La Verne drops to 3-7 overall. The Cougars currently sit in a 3-team tie for the Golden State Athletic Conference lead and return to GSAC play Thursday, March 5, to take on No. 12-ranked Fresno Pacific, which sits a half-game out of the 3-way first-place tie, in a 2:30 p.m. contest.