WILMINGTON, NC -- Senior lefthander Billy Harris (right) tied a career-high with 11 strikeouts over eight dominating innings and the powerful Delaware offense, led by Ryan Jablonski’s two home runs, put up 18 hits and four home runs as the University of Delaware baseball team thumped George Mason University, 13-3, in the first round of the Colonial Athletic Association Championship Wednesday afternoon.

Six of the nine starters for Delaware had multiple hits, and Jablonski, Brandon Menchaca and Bryan Hagerich had three hits apiece. Jablonski extended his hitting streak to 14 games.

As it has done often this year, Delaware (30-21) took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. With one out, Menchaca doubled down the third base line and came around to score when Alex Buchholz followed with a double to leftfield. Buchholz’ double was his 26th of the season, tying him for second place in a season with three other players.

The Hens’ put their first two runners on base in their half of the second, but Ryan Engelhardt grounded into a double play and with a runner on third, Kyle Davis’ hotshot was snared by Patriot third baseman Dan Palumbo, who threw Davis out at first to end the inning.

With a runner on first and two outs of a 1-0 game in the third, Harris had Spencer Wiggins picked off, but overthrew Adam Tsakonas at first base and Wiggins came all the way around to third. However, Harris then struck out CAA home run leader Scott Krieger to end the inning. The strikeout was the 65th of the season for Krieger, a new George Mason season record.

Hagerich led off the fourth with a home run to rightfield to give him 17 for the season and 47 for his career. The home run broke a tie with head coach Jim Sherman for second place in school history. The Hens loaded the bases with one out and Davis worked a walk to force in a run for a 3-0 lead. Jablonski then singled to right to move everyone up a station for a 4-0 lead. With Menchaca at the plate, Engelhardt scored on a passed ball, and Menchaca’s single brought in two more runs. Buchholz walked to reload the bases and Hagerich’s second hit of the inning scored another run. When it was all said and done, the Hens had scored seven runs on six hits and brought 12 batters to the plate.

With one out in the top of the fifth, Harris hit Wiggins and then Chris Fournier homered to center to put Mason on the board at 8-2. The homer ended a streak of 19.1 consecutive scoreless innings by Delaware pitching against George Mason dating back to their series in Fairfax in early April.

Mason then loaded the bases with no one out in the top of the sixth on an error, a hit batter and a single. Brent Weiss reached on a fielder’s choice to score one run, Wiggins sacrifice bunt moved runners to second and third with two outs and then Harris struck out Fournier looking to end the inning with only the one unearned run scoring.

The Hens got three in the bottom of the inning on solo home runs by Jablonski and Buchholz and an RBI single by Bill Merkler and added two more in the seventh on the second home run in as many innings by Jablonski.

Harris moved his overall record to 7-1, including a 7-0 mark against CAA teams. He now has 92 strikeouts this seaosn, sixth on the single-season strikeout list. J.J. Pannell took the loss for Mason (26-26) to fall to 7-4.

The Hens will return to action at 7 p.m. tomorrow when they take on the winner of this evening’s VCU- UNC Wilmington game.

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