RICHMOND, Ind. — Saturday's temperature may have been in the mid-20s, but the Earlham College baseball team had hot bats as the Quakers beat Wilmington College 10-1 in Randal R. Sadler Stadium.

"We knew our players would be excited," Earlham Head Coach Steve Sakosits said. "We worked very hard to get the field ready this week because we were disappointed that we didn't get to go to Tennessee last week."

"I saw a lot of good things," Sakosits added. "But there still things we need to work on and we're not there yet."

Brandon Smalling led Earlham with three hits, while Nate Lynch, Thomas Rea and Devin Spurgon had two hits each.

Earlham starter Nate Hube (1-0) picked up the victory for the Quakers as he didn't give up a hit in five innings.

"You don't want to take a guy out when he's throwing a no-hitter, but when it's 20-something degrees you have to be smart about that," Sakosits said. "The other guys came in and did their part. We gave up a hit at the end."

Garrett York, Bryce Rainey, Kyle Agius and Howie Smith tossed an inning apiece to finish the contest. Agius surrendered the run in the eight and Smith gave up Wilmington's only hit in the ninth. For the day, the Earlham pitchers recorded 13 strikeouts.

Earlham's offense got started in the bottom of the first. With one out, Rea drilled a double to right field. Spurgon followed with a triple to make it 1-0.

Smalling knocked in Earlham's next run with a single to make it 2-0.

"That just took the weight off of their shoulders and let them relax," Sakosits said. "Playing with a lead really helps your pitchers."

In the third, Lynch scored on an error. After Spurgon tripled for the second time, Smalling knocked him in with a single and Earlham led 4-0.

Wilmington (0-1) had three errors in the fourth inning, which led to five Earlham runs without a hit.

"Getting a big lead gave us an opportunity to use a lot of players and get the butterflies out of the way," Sakosits said.

Smalling had a run-scoring single in the fifth for Earlham's final tally of the game.

Sunday's scheduled doubleheader with Wilmington has been postponed until Wednesday, March 18. The first game is set for 1 p.m.

Earlham (1-0) returns to action next Saturday at home against Kalamazoo College. The single game gets underway at 2 p.m.