AZUSA, Calif. -- Just over a week ago, senior righthander Garrett Hodges took the loss in a pitcher's duel with The Master's ace Joe Zeller for Azusa Pacific's only defeat this season, but Hodges fired a complete-game 4-hitter to lead the NAIA's No. 8-ranked Cougars to an 8-1 home win over the Mustangs Thursday night. The victory is Azusa Pacific's 18th straight at home, tying the program record for longest home winning streak.

"After seeing them the first time last week, they were really aggressive on the first pitch," Hodges said, "so I just tried to pump a lot of pitches down at the knees. I did that last game, too, we were just unfortunate with the errors. I just wanted to work on pumping strikes and keep letting them put the ball in play."

Hodges retired 18 of the first 20 batters he faced, surrendering his only run on a 2-out double in the seventh with Azusa Pacific already holding a 3-0 lead.

"I tried to stay down in the zone," Hodges said. "I did make one mistake, a fastball that I left up (in the strike zone), and I thought it was going to go out (of the park), but fortunately it stayed in. Now I just have to clear this one from my mind and move on to the next game."

The Cougars answered with a 5-run outburst in the bottom of the seventh, and Hodges set The Master's down in order the final 2 frames to preserve the victory in an efficient 108-pitch effort. He struck out 6 without walking any in the 2-hour, 15-minute contest.

"He did a great job, right from the first inning," Cougar head coach Paul Svagdis said. "He started out throwing the ball down in the zone, getting ahead of hitters and attacking the strike zone with his fastball."

Led by the middle of its infield, the Azusa Pacific offense took care of the rest. Senior second baseman Ryan Dowell and junior shortstop Todd Stiles each collected 3 hits to pace the Cougars' 13-hit attack that knocked Mustangs starter Tyler Bersano from the game after 6 innings. Dowell welcomed Bersano's replacement, righthander Dustin Jones, into the game with a leadoff single in the seventh inning, the first of 11 Cougars to bat in the frame. He scored on senior centerfielder Drew Evans' 2-run bases-loaded single, and the next batter, junior leftfielder Stephen Gillette hit a 3-run home run to clear the bases and give the Cougars an 8-1 lead with a hard line drive that cleared the right-field fence.

"It's always nice to play at home," Svagdis said. "Just like playing over there (at Master's) is tough, we hope it's also tough (for other teams) to play at Azusa Pacific. I don't know if I attribute (our success here) to any one thing, but I think our guys played good fundamental baseball today. I was proud of the way the hitters came along today in terms of hanging in there and grinding it out. They were having some good at-bats, but things just weren't happening for them until we broke out in the seventh."

Jones retired just 2 of the 9 batters he faced, and Brock Heerdt walked Dowell in his second plate appearance of the inning to load the bases before recording the third out to escape the inning with no further damage.

Gillette's line-drive shot gave him home runs in 3 consecutive games, and junior first baseman Brice Cutspec broke the scoreless tie in the second inning with a towering leadoff shot to right-center field. The drive gave Cutspec the team's home run lead with his eighth of the season.

"It's a challenge to play a great team like The Master's, with the way they've started and with the pitching staff they've got," Svagdis said. "Getting to the bullpen is our goal, along with finding a way to do that as fast as we can, and Bersano did a nice job slowing us down after we scored a couple of runs early. Even though early on we weren't putting a lot of runs on the board, I felt like (our offense) did a good job. We put the ball in play hard, we swung at good pitches the right way and just missed them a little bit."

With the win, Azusa Pacific improves to 11-1 overall, 3-1 GSAC, while The Master's drops to 13-3 overall, 3-1 GSAC. The Cougars are home for a GSAC doubleheader against San Diego Christian on Saturday, Feb. 21, for the third and fourth games of the current 6-game homestand.