BROSELEY -- It's never really easy, but the Bernie baseball team made it look that way during their second road game of the fall season Monday.
Backed by a pitching and hitting gem from Dalton Hobgood and an offense that keeps rolling, the Mules hammered a young Twin Rivers team 13-3 to remain undefeated.
"Offensively these first five games they've done a good job of being patient," Bernie coach Marcus Massey said. "We've gotten deep in a lot of counts and made guys throw a lot of pitches, and part of that is we've got a lot of older kids. I've got 11 upperclassmen I can put out there any day and they did a great job offensively with Dalton dealing."
Hobgood, a senior, held the Royals to a double and three singles, and allowed just two of the 19 batters he faced to reach third.
The hard-throwing righty struck out three and baffled Twin Rivers hitters with his four-pitch arsenal by changing speeds and dancing around the corners of the plate. Hobgood retired the side in order in the third and got a pair of double plays from his defense to end the fourth and fifth innings before his night was through.
"He's done a good job, especially coming out and throwing strikes," Massey said. "Good things tend to happen when you do that and that's two in a row for him now."
With a 1-0 lead, Bernie (5-0) pulled away for good with five hits in a four-run second inning. Wyatt Barnett made it 3-0 with a bases-loaded, two-run double before Hobgood and Gavin Brown followed it up with consecutive RBI singles for a 5-0 advantage.
Twin Rivers (3-1) got a run back in the bottom-half of the second when Brady Leutert's single scored Tanner Ledbetter, who led off with a ground-rule double. But the Royals, who lost four seniors -- all starters -- to graduation, struggled at the plate for the rest of the afternoon
"We don't have quite the power hitters we did last year so we have to try and manufacture in bunches," Twin Rivers coach Jared Stockton said. "We're young, just two seniors, so there's going to be some growing pains this year."
Bernie erased the run with two more in the fourth on consecutive bases-loaded walks. The Mules tacked on another run in the fifth when Hobgood laced a singled up the middle to score Weston Comstock, who doubled to lead off the inning, for an 8-1 lead.
After struggling against Hobgood, the Royals rallied with two runs in the sixth thanks to an uncharacteristic error.
Against relief pitcher Blake Beacham, senior Jamie Robards, who was 2 for 4, singled with one out but appeared to be in trouble running to second as Leutert hit a grounder to third. But as the Mules attempted to turn a double play, the throw to second sailed past the second baseman's head and into right field. Kyle LeGrand singled one batter later to load the bases before Aaron Mittelstadt was hit by a pitch to cut the lead to 8-2. Montana Kendle kept the rally alive with an RBI single a batter later for the Royals' final run.
"We feel like our strongest point should be our defense," Massey said. "Throwing it around in the sixth like we did is kind of out of character for us and we let it get away from us, but this is our fifth game and that was only our second error. That's something we've been keying on."
The floodgates opened in the seventh inning after Bernie racked up six hits and pushed five runs across. Wyatt Barnett reached on a fielder's choice before Hobgood made it 10-3 with a two-run home run to left-center field. Brown followed with a solo shot to nearly the same spot and Beacham drove in two more with a single up the middle.
The Mules finished with 16 hits -- five for extra bases. Hobgood led the attack going 3 for 3 with a walk and three RBIs. Seven players finished with at least one hit.
"He's just comfortable in that spot," Massey said of Hobgood, the Mules' No. 3 hitter. "I like to see runner's on when he's coming up to bat for sure."