Box Score At the start of the day the John Carroll University baseball team's home game against No. 21 Case Western Reserve was up in the air with rain forecasted at the same time as the first pitch. John Carroll's bats came ready to hit and the rain held off.

Backed by 15 hits, the Blue Streaks (15-7) kept their winning ways going beating the Spartans (19-7) 10-3 on Thursday afternoon at Schweickert Field in University Hts., Ohio. John Carroll has now won 11 of its last 12 games.

John Carroll struck first in the bottom of the second inning with three straight hits. Chet Lauer worked his way back into the hit column tattooing a screamer to third that Case Western Reserve third baseman Andrew Gronski had no time to react to. Tyler Gentile hooked a double in down the left field line to give the Blue and Gold two runners on scoring position with one out. David Crowley continued to heat up with a 2-run single to put JCU on the board.

JCU added three more runs in the third inning with the middle of the lineup providing the pop. Jimmy Spagna helped himself out with a 1-out single to plate Bobby Sabatino. Lauer took advantage of the wind rocketing a 2-run homer over the left field fence.

Sabatino's aggressive base running led to the Blue and Gold pushing their sixth run across the board in the bottom of the fourth inning.

Spagna (1-1), making just his second start of the season, was sharp all afternoon. The senior fired six scoreless innings and did not allow a hit until the sixth. Spagna allowed two hits while striking out two. He finished with three hits at the plate and two RBIs to help his cause.

"He's a senior," said head coach Marc Thibeault. "He did a great job locating well. He grinded well after the leadoff batter got on in the first two innings. The defense behind him was outstanding today. I thought our middle infielders played exceptionally well. They did a good job of turning routine plays into outs and then non-routine plays into outs. We gave Jimmy a lift and he really fed off of that."

Case Western Reserve did its offensive damage in the seventh inning with three runs. The Spartans received a leadoff homer from sophomore Noah Sherman.  CWRU received RBI hits from Zack Tobias and Andrew Frey.

John Carroll threatened for a big inning in the seventh loading the bases with no outs. The Blue Streaks were only able to send one runner across on a bases-loaded walk by Mark Huddle.

The Blue and Gold did add three insurance runs in the eighth inning to open up the 7-run lead. Spagna brought in the first run of the inning plating Robby Cifelli with a 1-out single. A safety squeeze by Lauer and a 2-out RBI single by Jake Miller brought in the final two runs of the inning.

"That extension allowed us to not tax the bullpen and get Tyler Ferretti extended and in a less pressured situation," said Thibeault. "Having a 7-run lead is better than having a 3- or 4-run lead. That's a great ball club over there and our kids did a really good job competing today."

Sabatino came through for three of JCU's hits on the afternoon to run his hitting streak to 14 games.

"Bobby saw the ball well," said Thibeault. "He did a great job in keeping it simple in his first at bat with two strikes and trying to stay in the middle of the field. He used the whole field.

"A difference today was we had 22 balls hit on a line or on the ground. We only had five fly ball outs and three of them resulted in hits. That's big. We really want to try to win the last couple of frames in there.

John Carroll heads to Otterbein for a doubleheader on Saturday, April 12. First pitch is set for 1 p.m.