LANCASTER, Pa. – Bolstered by a five-run third inning, Elizabethtown College baseball scored the first seven runs to defeat Franklin & Marshall by a 7-2 score Thursday afternoon and give head coach Cliff Smith the 198th win of his career.

Four batters into the game, Luke Gatti singled home Kyle Fackler for a 1-0 Elizabethtown lead against Diplomat starter Sam Ackerman.

Two Franklin & Marshall (22-10) errors in the third extended the inning and allowed the Blue Jays to push across four more runs after Nick Lorenz was hit with a pitch to bring in E-town's first of the inning.

Frank Ragozzino singled in a run, Lorenz scored on a wild pitch and Austin Kibler provided a sacrifice fly as the Blue Jays (22-12) went up 6-0. F&M would commit a whopping six errors in the game.

While the Diplomats kicked the ball around and kept the dangerous Blue Jays bats hanging around the plate, Elizabethtown starter Dylan Manning was making quick work of F&M's hitters.

Manning retired the side in order in the first and faced just one batter over the minimum through three innings. Though F&M would get two runs in the fourth, Manning settled back in to shut them down in the fifth and sixth.

The junior right-hander went 6.2 innings in all, allowing five hits, two runs (one earned) and striking out three in improving to 3-1 on the season.

Ackerman was hit with his third loss, but just one of the seven runs scored against the F&M starter was charged to him.

With three more hits Thursday (3-for-4), senior first baseman Gatti is up to 57 knocks for the season. Gatti's team-leading batting average went up by 10 points, to .435, after his second consecutive three-hit game and sixth this season.

Alex Holbert was 3-for-5 with two runs scored and now has 99 career hits heading into the Blue Jays' final Landmark series at Susquehanna this Saturday and Sunday. Fackler was 2-for-5 in a game absent of any extra-base hits.

Right fielder Brian Erb finished 2-for-3 and was the lone Diplomat with multiple hits. E-town pitchers Manning, Anthony Lippy, Taras Letnaunchyn and Sean Jones limited F&M to six hits.

Elizabethtown, trying to snag a Landmark Championships berth in its first season as a league member, will begin its three game series at Susquehanna with a 1 p.m. doubleheader Saturday.