Overall, the United South Central baseball team&8217;s season has been an up-and-down affair. The Rebels are just 7-6 overall but they improved to an impressive 6-3 in the Gopher Conference with a 17-0 blowout of Waterville-Elysian-Morristown Thursday afternoon.

&8220;Historically the teams we have had here score 12 or 13 runs one game, then just one or two the next,&8221; said Rebels head coach Pat Frank. &8220;The one thing that helped us today is the fact that we had what I call a million dollar practice yesterday.

&8220;We were finally able to get in the batting cage and work on our hitting, something we haven&8217;t been able to do for most of the year, but it&8217;s finally starting to come around.&8221;

That extra work in the batting cage paid off in a big way against the Buccaneers as USC had four players collect two hits each. Kevin George continued his spectacular year with two doubles, a home run, and four RBIs while Darin Stenzel and Nick Fure added two doubles and two RBI each.

Andrew Penning took the mound for the Rebels and went the distance with seven strikeouts while allowing just two W-E-M hits. Penning also got in on the Rebels hit parade, helping his cause at the plate with two doubles and three RBIs.

With the win the Rebels stay in second place in the Gopher Conference behind 10-0 Mankato Loyola.

The hot hitting continued for USC Friday night against Blooming Prairie in a wild game that left Frank searching for the right words.

&8220;I hadn&8217;t seen anything like this in quite sometime,&8221; Frank said. &8220;If someone would have had to pay, they would have got their monies worth.&8221;

The game ended in a 10-9 Rebels loss to the Awesome Blossoms and ended high dramatics.

USC trailed 9-6 heading into their last at-bat, but with one out and two men on Jake Bonsack, fresh off dislocating a finger, crushed a pitch out of the park for a three-run homer to tie the game at nine.

Blooming Prairie responded in the bottom half of the frame when a runner stole second base, advanced to third on an errant throw and came around to score the winning run when Rebels outfielders couldn&8217;t get the ball into the infield quick enough.

The game had a great showcase of power as the Awesome Blossoms JJ Stenzel hit a three-run blast to give his team a 7-6 lead in the fourth inning, just after USC had taken the lead with five runs in the top half of the fourth.

&8220;Win or lose, that was a fun game,&8221; Frank said.

Ned Kallis started for the Rebels and threw three innings of four hit ball and allowed four runs to score.

Fure came on in relief and took the loss after he gave up three runs on four hits.

Bonsack had a day at the plate as he went 3-for-4 with a double and the three-run shot to finish with five RBIs.

United South Central 17, Waterville-Elysian-Morristown 0

USC – 048 50x x – 17

WEM – 000 00x x – 0

WP – Andrew Penning 5 IP, 7 K, 2 BB, 2 H

Blooming Prairie 10, USC 9

USC – 001 500 3 – 9 12 1

Blooming Prairie – 004 301 1 – 10 8 2

LP – Nick Fure 2 2/3 IP, 3 K, 1 BB, 4 H, 3 R