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TAMPA (March 6, 2015) — Jimmy Herget was in top form Friday night, striking out 12 batters and giving up just two hits, in a 1-0 shutout win over Seton Hall (1-6) in the series opener.

The righty was just one strikeout shy of his single-game career-high in his eight innings of work. Herget (4-0) walked just one batter to go with his twelve strike outs in his first shutout of the season.

“Jimmy was outstanding, like he's been every Friday night,” head coach Mark Kingston said. “The encouraging thing is we played great defense behind him. He had a lot of strikeouts but we made a lot of defensive plays and I thought that was the difference in the game for us.”

The Bulls (7-6-1) took the lead in the bottom of the second thanks to a bases loaded balk by Seton Hall's Zach Prendergast. Levi Borders and Luke Maglich led off the inning with back-to-back singles, before Austin Lueck reached on a fielder's choice. With one out, Zac Gilcrease drew a walk to load the bases. With Buddy Putnam at the plate, Prendergast balked to bring in Maglich.

Maglich went 2-for-3 on the night with one run. Kyle Teaf extended his on-base streak to 13 games with a single in the eighth inning and Luke Borders went 2-for-4, stretching his on base streak to five games.

With freshman Kevin Merrell out with an illness, Daniel Portales stepped in to play left field. The sophomore made two huge plays, running to the wall to catch a foul ball for an out in the fourth and making a diving play in foul territory in the fifth.

“He made a play by the wall and a diving play in foul territory,” Kingston said. “When guys have to step up, they need to do that. He had a chance to play a different position tonight and he took advantage of it.”

Tommy Peterson notched his fourth save of the year, facing the final three batters to help preserve the shutout.

The Bulls and Pirates are back in action Saturday, March 7, at 6:30 p.m. RHP Casey Mulholland will draw the start for USF.

“It's one game at a time,” Kingston said. “But you can't win a series until you start to win on Friday night and Jimmy usually gives a great chance to do that.”

For more information on the USF baseball team, follow @USFBaseball on Twitter.

- #GoBulls -