Justin Simmons barely outpitched Steven Herce in Texas' 2-1 win over Rice on Saturday night in the last game of the opening round.

"As far as my side, I was just trying to hold them to as few runs as possible," said Simmons, who shut out Rice for seven innings.

"He did the same thing. He had our hitters pretty much fooled all night," Simmons said of Herce. "There's not much more you can ask of your pitcher than to hold a team in the College World Series to two runs."

Despite warm, humid conditions with little or no wind in a usually hitter-friendly ballpark, the game was a pitcher's duel rarely seen in the CWS. It was the fewest runs scored since Louisiana State beat Florida 2-1 in 1996.

"What can I say? It was a hard-played and well-pitched ballgame," Rice coach Wayne Graham said. "It just didn't go our way."

Simmons (15-1) allowed one run on five hits, struck out three and walked two in 7 1/3 innings. Herce (13-3) was almost as sharp, allowing two runs on eight hits while striking out eight in 7 2-3 innings.

Huston Street picked up his 11th save with 1 2-3 scoreless relief innings for the Longhorns.

"I give credit to Justin for coming out and really setting the tone," Street said. "We had the lead the whole game and that makes things a lot easier."

The Longhorns (54-15), who beat Rice (52-13) twice during the regular season, won the opener of their 29th CWS and will play Stanford on Monday. The Cardinal beat Notre Dame 4-3 in Saturday's early game.

The Fighting Irish and Owls, ranked No. 1 in the major polls, will also play Monday in an elimination game.

Jeff Ontiveros' RBI single in the third for Texas was the game's only run until the eighth, when Dustin Majewski doubled to drive in Tim Moss and put the Longhorns up 2-0.

Rice's Eric Arnold broke up the shutout bid in the eighth with a towering homer over the 30-foot batter's screen in center, where it's 408 feet to the wall.

Texas coach Augie Garrido had trouble finding the right word to describe the distance of Arnold's ninth homer of the season.

"The one ball that ended up scoring the run was ... far," he said after a brief pause.

The Owls nearly tied it later in the eighth after two of Texas' four errors. With runners at first and second and two outs, Paul Janish hit a slow grounder to third that Omar Quintanilla booted.

Vincent Sinisi rounded third and broke for home, but Quintanilla got to the ball quickly and threw out Sinisi at the plate.

"It was just reaction play. Apparently I made the wrong choice," Sinisi said. "He made a good throw. It was about the only spot he could put it and he put it right there."

Rice also nearly had runs on two fly balls in the sixth that carried to the wall but were caught. The flies by A.J. Porfirio and Enrique Cruz likely would have been out a year ago before the outfield was expanded and the walls raised.

"Several balls were hit hard and came down a foot away from the fence," Garrido said. "We feel very fortunate to have won."

The Longhorns took a 1-0 lead in the third on three consecutive singles, two of which were line drives that nearly hit Herce. Ontiveros had the third hit -- which Herce had to duck -- to drive in Quintanilla.

"I haven't had any balls come back at me like that in a long time," Herce said. "I just missed the spot. You can't miss the spot to a guy with power and runners at first and third."

Texas almost turned a triple play in the fourth. With runners at first and second and no outs, Sinisi hit a sharp liner to Ontiveros, who caught it, stepped on first and threw to Moss at second. But Porfirio dived back to the base just before the ball arrived.

"That was a big turning point in the game," Simmons said. "I've relied all year on our defense to back me up and they did a great job."