Take away a bumpy third inning in the first of two games against the Rosemount Black Sox Friday night and the Austin Blue Sox played about as good as a team can.

The Blue Sox peppered Rosemount pitcher Lance Anderson for 17 hits over eight innings, and pitcher Joe Huffman went six innings with only two hits allowed in their 14-4, 10-run shortened win at Marcusen Park.

“We had one inning with some errors, and I walked and hit a batter, but we played pretty well,” Huffman said.

That inning came in the third when the Blue Sox committed three errors leading 4-0. Huffman, who had been cruising with one, two, three innings in both the first and second, walked Dave Neudecker followed by Ron Holstrom reaching on an error.

Billy Hamilton followed two batters later with a two RBI double that drove both runners in. Both Hamilton and Loren Sjoquist would score and tie the game on errors.

That was the last good thing on the night for the Black Sox. Huffman returned to form and Brian Voigt finished, striking out three out of the six batters he faced.

“We’re so deep right now with pitchers,” Huffman said. “We have six or seven guys that can come in and pitch and very capable of getting outs.”

While Huffman and Voigt did their job on the mound, the Blue Sox bats worked Anderson. Austin scored at leas one run in all but two innings including three in the bottom of the eighth to cap the night.

Nate Johnson led the Blue Sox going 4 for 4 with two walks, four runs scored and a stolen base.

“I took a week off,” Johnson said jokingly. “I guess it worked.

“I was just trying to hit the other way and not be so antsy,” he continued. “We’re playing a lot like we did when we made our run two years ago. We set the table for some of our big guys. We string some singles together, we’ll get the win.”

Austin’s biggest inning came in a four-run fourth when Johnson led off with a double, followed by an RBI single by Aaron Port and single by Voigt. Pat Wolard loaded the bases with a walk.

Derek Emanuel drew a walk to push Port across and Winston Smith walked two batters later to drive in Voigt. The final run of the inning came across on an RBI single from Joe Kroc for a 9-4 lead. Emanuel was thrown out at home trying to score the inning’s fifth run.

Aaron Port went 4 for 5 with four runs scored as well, and had the final hit of the night to drive Joe Kroc in for the win.

The Blue Sox (8-0) hosted the second game in the series Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. Results for that game can be found in Monday’s Austin Daily Herald.

Also on Friday, the Austin Greyhounds were in action at Coon Rapids. The Greyhounds overpowered the undefeated Red Birds (then 18-0) to win 11-7.