MELBOURNE, Fla. - The Embry-Riddle baseball team was held to just five hits on Thursday night, but still managed to score three runs against Florida Tech; however, the Panthers plated eight runs on nine hits and seven base on balls to take the series opener from ERAU, 8-3. The Eagles (12-26) fell to 2-8 in weekend series openers while the Panthers (22-14) extended their all-time series advantage against the Blue and Gold to 16-13.

A two-out walk went for naught in the Eagle first, and for the fourth straight weekend game, Aidan Brady took the mound to start for the Eagles, working out of a bases-loaded jam to keep the game scoreless after one.

After a quick 1-2-3 ERAU second, the Panthers took advantage of the first of three Eagle errors on the night, scoring an unearned run to go in front 1-0. The deficit didn't last long for the visitors as they responded with two runs of their own in the third, the first on a Kyle Guttveg infield single that plated Robbie Hanlon and the second when Guttveg touched home on a Christopher Medina batted ball.

FIT tied things up in its half of the third, another unearned run that made it 2-2. While neither team was able to take a lead in the fourth, it was the Panthers that took the lead, and for good, in the fifth as they got to Matthew Russell for a pair of runs and their starter, Ty Cohen, kept ERAU off the board in the sixth and seventh.

Florida Tech blew things open in the seventh with four total runs (three unearned), pushing the cushion to 8-2, and even though the Eagles got a run back in the eighth on a Zach Howard sacrifice fly, plating Medina, the visitors couldn't climb out of the hole, falling 8-3.

Russell (1-6) was tagged with the loss in 5.1 innings of relief, while Medina was the only Eagle with multiple hits with two.

ERAU and FIT will finish the series tomorrow, Friday, April 14 in a doubleheader beginning at 12 p.m.