GROVE CITY — Slippery Rock had most of its starting lineup together for the first time this season.

And Grove City found out how potent the Rockets' lineup can be when healthy.

Slippery Rock (7-0, 2-0) pounded out 13 hits against a trio of Eagles' pitchers and scored a season-high 12 runs in a 12-2, five-inning road region win over Grove City Wednesday afternoon.

“They swung hot bats today,” said Grove City coach Bill Herman. “They barrelled up a lot of baseballs.”

Travis Lauster played his first full game of the season and had a triple and scored three runs. Ryan Lauster had three singles, scored three runs and drove in two and Jason Bennett had a pair of doubles and two RBI and the Rockets jumped out to a 6-0 lead after two innings.

Grove City starter Brandon Grace lasted just one inning before yielding to Jesse Hodge.

Grace, a left-hander, was the best option to start, Herman said.

“Grace was the freshest and he's had two quality starts for us and he's been effective all year, so we wanted to give him the ball,” Herman said. “We had a quick hook on him once we saw he didn't have his best stuff today.

“Grace is the type if he's on, he's on and if he's not, we can recognize it early,” Herman added.

Slippery Rock scored a run in every inning but the third and capped off its offensive afternoon with a five-run fifth keyed by a two-run single by Danny Williams.

Slippery Rock coach Nate McCollough welcomed the offensive resurgence.

“The other day against Oil City, we didn't swing the bats that well,” McCollough said. “Today our approaches were a lot better. We were able to stay longer through the zone and we went the other way a lot of times. And even when we weren't getting hits, we were getting bunts down and moving runners over.”

Case in point was No. 9 hitter Cody Lawniczak, who had two sacrifice bunts that led to two runs.

The biggest key, though, for Slippery Rock was getting Travis Lauster back into the lineup.

“We're getting healthy,” McCollough said. “We're still one guy (Jackson Kerchis) short. But one through nine, I'm confident in everyone who's coming up. Everyone is like a three- or four-hitter.”

The onslaught was unexpected, even to McCollough.

“I honestly didn't know a lot about what Grove City had, to be completely honest with you,” McCollough said. “They're a great team. I know the next time we play them, they're going to want to come out and do the same thing to us. You never expect to 10-run a rival.”

While Slippery Rock's bats were potent, so was the pitching of Rockets' sophomore Gunner Becker.

The right-hander struggled at times with his command, but struck out four and gave up two runs — both unearned — in five innings.

“He hung his off-speed stuff a couple of times,” McCollough said. “But he used it effectively to keep them off-balance just enough to make his fastball that much more effective.”

Hodge went 3 1/3 innings in relief for Grove City. Kyle Shingledecker worked the final 2/3 of an inning for the Eagles.

“It's tough to go undefeated in the league, and fortunately we get another crack at these guys later in the year,” Herman said. “We'll learn from this and hopefully the next time we'll swing as hot bats as they did today.”

Slippery Rock 240 15x x — 12 13 2

Grove City 002 00x x — 2 4 2

W: Gunner Becker 5IP (4K, 3BB). L: Brandon Dennis 1IP (0K, 1BB).

Slippery Rock (7-0, 2-0): Ryan Lauster 3-1B 2-RBI 3-R, Jason Bennett 2-2B 2-RBI, Travis Lauster 3B 3-R, Danny Williams 2-1B 2-RBI, Jake Arienzo 1B RBI, Becker 2-1B 2-RBI, Josh Bowser 2B, Cody Lawniczak 1B

Grove City (7-1, 1-1): Kyle Shingledecker 1B, Jesse Hodge 1B 2-RBI, Brett Snyder 1B, Zack Reddick 1B

Today: Slippery Rock at Mercer

Monday: Grove City at Conneaut