Wheeling Post 1 pitcher Luke Doyle comes home with a pitch Wednesday against Moundsville Post 3 during their game at Wheeling Park High School. Doyle picked up the win on the mound in an 11-3 Wheeling victory.

WHEELING – Moundsville sent the first shot across the bow, but Wheeling’s rebuttal blew their opponents away.

After taking a 1-0 lead in the top of the first Wednesday at Wheeling Park High School, Moundsville Post 3 fell behind to Wheeling Post 1, who rang off nine unanswered runs to take control of an eventual 11-3 victory.

“We’re absolutely swinging it,” Isaac Rine, who took over manager duties with usual head coach John Michael Bruner absent for the day, said. “It’s getting it done for us. Today we had a few errors, we’d like to clean that up and get out of here a little bit sooner.

“We’re hitting the ball really well, we’re throwing strikes, getting people out. I’d like to clean up the errors from today.”

Four Post 1 players had multiple hits, while Luke Doyle, Ryan Yates and Preston Cole each had strong showings on the mound, Doyle picking up the win in a four-inning start.

Jaxon Murray led the way for Wheeling with three hits, ending up a home run short of the cycle, with four RBI from the three-hole.

Leadoff man Jared Marsh tallied two hits, stole a base and scored twice. Braxton Billick, Dillon Wilson and Andrew Skadra each had two runs batted in, Skadra doing his damage on a second-inning double to the left-center fence.

Each of Wheeling’s starters either tallied a hit or scored a run in a complete team win.

Moundsville, a young squad with no high school seniors and four juniors on their 22-man roster, got off to a good start Wednesday, three of their first three batters punching singles across the outfield. Mason Markonich’s single to right field allowed leadoff batter Cain Martin to score and put Moundsville ahead 1-0. Donavan Jones drew a walk to load the bases with one out, but Doyle struck out the next two batters, using a big curveball to end the inning.

Marsh and Billick each reached to start Wheeling’s day at the plate, and Murray ripped a triple over the centerfielder’s head to vault Post One in front, 2-1.

Wheeling never trailed again, tacking on one more run in the first, two more in the second off of Skadra’s double, and four in the third, Dillon Wilson’s two-run single through the infield highlighting that inning.

Moundsville scored twice in the top of the fourth, a two-out throwing error in the infield allowing Hunter Coulter and Hayden Gaiser to score.

Wheeling tallied 13 hits in the outing, while Moundsville did pound out six hits of their own.

“Credit to Moundsville, I was talking to coach Babiczuk before and they talked about their struggles last year, and they scored in the top of the first inning today,” Rine said. “They’ve put together a really nice team and I’m excited to compete with them the rest of the this year and in the years to come.”

Wheeling Post one improves to 2-0 on the season with the win.

Babiczuk was encouraged by what he saw from his team, but did lament not getting the most out of their opening attack.

“I think we had a great start; bases loaded in the first inning, that’s huge,” Babiczuk said. “Ran the pitch count up. We’ve just got to get more than one run across the plate in that first inning. We started hot, we need to finish innings like that. We need to stay aggressive and keep putting the ball in play, we struck out too much today.”

Wheeling is back in action this weekend against an opponent yet to be determined; Moundsville faces Wellsburg on Monday.