LAKE MILLS, IOWA— Lake Mills baseball coach Jason Blaser looked to find some offensive fire power by switching his line-up around on Tuesday against Northwood-Kensett.

After the first inning, mission accomplished.

The Bulldogs scored nine runs in the first inning and pounded out 13 total hits to defeat Northwood-Kensett 15-3 in five innings in Lake Mills.

“It was good, I thought we had a much better approach at the plate tonight,” Lake Mills baseball coach Jason Blaser said. “I think the key was the first we were able to score nine runs with basically all base hits.”

While for Northwood-Kensett, the first inning proved to be too much to overcome.

“We gave up nine runs in the first inning,” Northwood-Kensett baseball coach Mike Reindl said. “We probably should have been out of that inning with five or six runs, we had a couple of errors there that cost us some runs.”

The Vikings’ struck first in the first inning when Jacob Katcher scored on an error to put Northwood-Kensett ahead 1-0 early.

Then the Bulldogs’ bats woke up in the bottom half of the first.

Lake Mills sent 13 batters to the plate in the inning, which resulted in nine runs.

The Bulldogs’ also tallied seven hits in the inning.

“I think we swung at better pitches,” Blaser said of the first inning. “You want to swing at something you can hit hard and I thought we did a nice job of that.”

Chris Throne delivered the knockout punch for the Bulldogs when he homered in the fourth inning to drive in three runs to put Lake Mills ahead 15-3.

Throne took two straight pitches for strikes before unleashing a powerful home run over the center field wall.

The Bulldog offense provided more than enough runs for starting pitcher Levi Dahle.

Dahle went all five innings, allowed only one hit and struck out four for the win, while he also helped his cause at the plate with four rbis.

“The key for him is to be consistent,” Blaser said. “For the most part he is going to be a kid that is around the plate, but tonight he used his fast ball and overpowered their hitters.”

Spencer Capitani took the loss for Northwood-Kensett, as he went four innings allowed 13 hit and struck out three.

Although Capitani struggled, Coach Reindl liked that his pitcher came back from a rough first inning and finished the game.

“In the past he would have been done,” Reindl said. “I was very impressed with that part of the game because he pitched his way through it and got through the entire game.”

Lake Mills is in action on Wednesday in Belmond, while Northwood-Kensett is off until next week.

Lake Mills 15, Northwood-Kensett 3

NK 100 20 — 3 1 3

LM 903 3x — 15 13 3

WP- Levi Dahle 5 IP, 1 H, 3 R, 3 BB, 4 K

LP- Spencer Capitani 4 IP, 13 H, 15 R, 3 BB, 3 K