HUGHESVILLE — Hughesville’s offense has frequently been too quiet for Spartan coach Chris Kish’s liking this year. Through three innings in Thursday’ss crucial contest against HAC-III foe Loyalsock in a game that Kish described as can’t-lose for their playoff hopes, it looked to be more of the same for their offense.

Suddenly the Hughesville offense broke out in a big way.

The Spartans scored 13 runs in their final three trips to the plate, capped off by an eight-run fifth inning to invoke the mercy rule as they beat Loyalsock, 13-3, at Bodine Park.

“I thought we hit the ball hard, which was good to see, but we also took our walks and didn’t expand the zone. For us, we’ve been a team that hasn’t attacked early enough in counts, and that’s been a priority,” Kish said. “But being able to show that discipline at the plate, take our walks when they’re there, and then capitalize and keep resetting the inning was awesome.”

In a game that saw intermittent but heavy rain yet was never stopped, keeping focus was key. That’s exactly what sophomore Gage Webb did. The starting pitcher gave up a second-inning home run to Drake Dupont, and was the victim of some errors in the third inning as the Lancers plated two to take a 3-0 lead. But Webb was fantastic on the mound from then on, and dominated at the plate, as well, driving in five runs.

“I felt like our team has been struggling to start off this year, so if we just stayed in it and I kept competing on the mound, throwing strikes, eventually our bats were going to wake up,” Kish said. “We were putting together good at-bats in the first couple innings. Nothing really came of it, but we just kept battling.”

The first run produced off of Webb’s bat didn’t go down as a run batted in for him, as a two-out error allowed Jed Abernatha to score to make it 3-1 in the third. Webb was up with two outs once again in the bottom of the fourth inning, and he hit a bases-clearing double just over the outstretched glove of the right fielder down the line to plate three and give Hughesville the lead, 5-3.

Then, in the fifth inning, Webb came up two batters after an Abernatha single drove in two to put Hughesville up, 8-3. Once again, webb found grass in right field, this time scoring two to make the score 10-3. All of a sudden, a two-run game had turned into a chance for a mercy rule win. And, a few batters later, Landon Puderbach doubled down the left field line to end the game.

The win moves Hughesville to 6-6 as they look to finish the season at .500 or better to qualify for the District 4 playoffs.

“I’m always against saying it’s a must-win until it’s a must-win, right?” Kish said. “But this is as close to a must-win as you can have. It was a can’t-lose, without a doubt.”

Hughesville 13, Loyalsock 3

(5 INNINGS)

Loyalsock 012 00 — 3 6 1

Hughesville 001 48 — 13 6 2

Drake Dupont, Jahvon LaRosa (5), Nolan Rall (5) and Curtis Lewis. Gage Webb and Kyler Solomon. W: Webb. L: Dupont.

Top Loyalsock hitters: Connor Cowden 2-2, run; Kayden Keefer 1-2, RBI, BB. Top Hughesville hitters: Gage Webb 2-4, 5 RBIs; Jed Abernatha 2-2, 2 RBIs, 2 runs.