Warren East courtesy runner Caleb Love scores a run during Warren East's 7-0 win over South Warren on Monday, April 9, 2018, at Warren East. (Austin Anthony/photo@bgdailynews.com)

Warren East baseball coach Wes Sanford may not have a four-leaf clover in his pocket, but he has the next best thing to a lucky charm – Ryan Hawks on the mound.

The University of Louisville commit came through again for the Raiders in Monday’s District 14 opener against South Warren with a two-hit shutout to help Warren East to a 7-0 victory.

Warren East (5-3 overall, 1-0 District 14) improved to 4-0 when Hawks is the starting pitcher.

“We’ve got to learn how to win without Hawks on the mound, but we play really well when he is on the mound,” Sanford said. “We put the ball in play. We fight. We have a lot of energy. We went to Florida last week and I think we had too much fun. We didn’t focus. I hope tomorrow when we come out we are ready to play and play hard and hopefully learned from last week.”

Hawks got plenty of support from his offense as the Raiders scored in four out of six innings and took advantage of four South Warren errors.

The first error led to the first run in the bottom of the second. Preston Dyer reached on an error in the fourth and came around to score on an RBI single by Sheldon Martin to make the score 2-0.

The Raiders broke it open with four runs in the fifth – including RBI singles from Dyer and Colson Elkins.

“The bottom of the order really got us going tonight,” Sanford said. “Preston Dyer had a heck of a night. He had that long at-bat. He didn’t get to go to Florida with us last week, so it was good that he got back in here – the first day back from a whole week off without seeing any baseball.”

Warren East added one more run in the sixth and Hawks closed it out in the seventh. The right-hander threw 90 pitches, 55 for strikes, and struck out 11. Hawks didn’t allow a hit until the fifth on a double by Zack Beckner, one of two hits on the night for South Warren (3-5, 0-1), and walked two.

“I’ve faced them a couple of times in past years and, straight up, they have hit me well,” Hawks said. “Coming out here tonight and showing what I can do, it’s a huge confidence boost for the whole team.”

The Raiders finished with 10 hits – including two each from Hawks, Nolan Ford and Dakota Basham.

Tyler Martin had the other hit for the Spartans.

“It was a close game early … but we can’t walk people and we can’t make errors,” South Warren coach Chris Gage said. “That’s our formula. It’s pretty simple. We don’t have overpowering pitching, but we can have good pitching. They have to work ahead in the count and they can’t walk people. The first guy that scored was a walk. Then we compounded that later on with those errors.”

The three-game series continues Tuesday at 5 p.m. at Warren Central.

SWHS 000 000 0 – 0

WEHS 010 141 X – 7

WP: Hawks LP: Yates