Staff photo / Preston Byers McDonald’s Brady Klockner (10) steals second base as Niles’ Vincent Dennis tries to field the throw during Friday’s game at Bob Cene Park in Struthers.

STRUTHERS — McDonald picked up its third consecutive win Friday with a five-inning, 10-0 non-conference victory against Niles at Bob Cene Park in Struthers.

The Blue Devils jumped ahead early, taking a slim lead, until blowing the game open with an eight-run fourth inning. With the win, they improved to 5-1 on the season.

“Quinn [Schmidt] pitched a heck of a game. He’s a good pitcher, a good shortstop, a good player. But our kids need to get out more,” McDonald head coach Andy Timko said. “[Niles] had played 11 games, we’d played five games, so hopefully we can keep playing.”

To start Monday’s game, Schmidt had arguably his toughest inning on the mound in the first. Both Joseph Lehman and Vincent Dennis reached base, the former singling down the third-base line, while the latter drew a walk.

However, McDonald caught Lehman attempting to steal second base, and Schmidt earned the first of his eight strikeouts to end the half-inning.

The Blue Devils quickly took control in the home half, with Schmidt singling through the left side of the infield to score Brady Klockner.

After Schmidt struck out three of the four batters he faced in the top of the second, McDonald went ahead 2-0 on a Chayse Hickox groundout that allowed Anthony Larson, who had drawn a leadoff walk, to cross home plate.

The first two innings paled in comparison to the fourth, though, as the Blue Devils pulled away from the Red Dragons.

The half-inning began with an overthrow and a collision at first base, and was quickly followed by a pair of passed balls, leading to a Larson RBI single. Another error soon followed on a pop-up that fell beside several Niles infielders.

Capitalizing on the mistakes, Klockner drove in two runners on a hard-hit single. A pitching change — Andrew Strader in for starter AJ Sgambati — did nothing to slow down the Blue Devils’ momentum, as they continued to bat around and bring home five more runners to go ahead by 10.

“A couple balls we dropped, and then it kind of just spiraled from there,” Niles coach Joe Toth said of the fourth inning. “Once that happened, we had to fight just to get out of the inning. By then, though, it was eight runs too late.”

Needing to score at least one run to avoid the 10-run mercy rule, Niles proved unable to extend the game against Schmidt. In addition to striking eight batters, the McDonald starter allowed just two hits and one walk.

Niles (4-8, 0-4 NE8), which was coming off back-to-back lopsided wins vs. East, will host Poland on Wednesday.

McDonald (5-1, 2-0 MVAC Scarlet) has now outscored its opponents 78-6 this season, aside from a 2-1 defeat to Ursuline, the Blue Devils have scored at least 10 runs in every game and recorded four shutouts.

McDonald plays at Howland at noon today.

“It gets tougher,” Timko said of the schedule. “We needed to do this because we have a lot of new players this year, so we’re trying to get them prepared and be ready for the better teams.”