St. Thomas Baseball had gone 699 days since it last played a home conference game on campus. The Tommies took advantage of the comfortable surroundings on Friday at Koch Diamond as they recorded a 7-1, 17-2 sweep of St. Mary's to open the 2021 MIAC season.

The teams play two again on Saturday in Winona -- the first, a nine-inning game, counts in the league standings.

After averaging just five hits a game in a 4-3 start to the season, all tight games, St. Thomas erupted for 24 runs and 29 hits on Friday with 10 different players contributing.

The St. Thomas pitching continued to shine, aided Friday be several slick plays by SS Matthew Enck, 3B Kyle Halverson and 1B Owen Best. Starter Andrew Tri went six innings in game one and allowed one run, four hits and two walks with five strikeouts. In game two, Graham Laubscher fanned 11 with no walks and allowed two hits and one earned run over six innings.

On the nine-game season so far, over a 70-inning span, St. Thomas has a 1.42 ERA with a .179 battng clip allowed, with 100 strikeouts and just 25 walks.

Halverson's two-run homer in game two helped the Toms pull away. Halverson also scored twice in the fifth inning as part of a 10-run eruption as he singled and walked in that frame.

On the doubleheader, Enck went 5-for-8; Charlie Bartholomew had three hits and three RBI; Jake Porter had three hits and three RBI; and Sam Kulesa had three hits. Best had an RBI single early in game one, his first hit of his young collegiate career, and came back later in the game with a second RBI hit.