WSU baseball was two outs shy of tossing a combined no-hitter Thursday night against Santa Clara. Instead, the Cougars had to settle for a 10-0 shutout win over the Broncos on the road to grab their first win of the season.

Santa Clara got off to a bad start allowing three of the first four Cougar batters to reach base. Sophomore outfielder Collin Montez got the scoring started for WSU with a bloop single to center field to score junior outfielder Danny Sinatro.

Despite a tough start to the game for Broncos junior right-handed pitcher Trevor Howard, senior infielder Andres Alvarez got caught stealing and Howard forced a groundout to escape the inning.

Freshman right-handed pitcher Brandon White started the game for the Cougars and delivered a quick one-two-three first inning for WSU.

The early parts of the game gave the impression fans were watching a pitcher’s duel as both the Broncos and Cougars were making quick work of their opponents.

Through three innings, White was nothing short of dominant. He didn’t allow a runner on base and struck out five.

Freshman infielder Kyle Manzardo hit a sacrifice fly to right field in the top of the fourth inning to score Alvarez and give WSU a 2-0 lead.

The Cougars forced Howard out of the game with one out remaining in the fourth inning. With two runners still on base, WSU picked up back-to-back hits, a walk and two stolen bases from a pair of wild pitches to take a commanding 7-0 lead.

After a harsh pitching performance in the fourth for the Broncos, WSU was unable to get on base in the next two innings. However, Santa Clara failed to get on base through five innings and looked sloppy on defense with three errors.

Six innings into the game, Santa Clara had settled down on defense but were getting no-hit by White who was throwing a perfect game until a bad hop at shortstop forced an error by Alvarez.

After 6 1/3 innings pitched, Head Coach Marty Lees took out White, who walked off to a standing ovation from Cougar fans in attendance.

An RBI double from junior infielder Dillon Plew increased WSU’s lead to 8-0.

Montez continued his tremendous night on offense in the ninth with a leadoff triple. A walk and two errors allowed the Cougars to score another run and win the game 10-0.

WSU faces Santa Clara in the second game of the series 6 p.m. Friday at Stephen Schott Stadium.