Western Kentucky’s baseball team moved to 3-0 on the season with a 5-2 win over Lafayette in the series opener on Saturday evening at Nick Denes Field.

WKU starts the season 3-0 for the second time in three seasons under Marc Rardin.

Treyson Peters made his second start on the mound for WKU. He finished with four strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings of work while conceding two runs on three hits and two walks. Evan Jones earned the win in his second appearance of the season. The right-hander finished with one strikeout in 0.1 frames without allowing a run on one hit and no walks.

WKU’s Cal Higgins earned the first save of his career as he matched a career-high with four innings pitched. The southpaw was near perfect in relief as he struck out three Leopards while only surrendering one hit.

“Going into it, I was so glad that we signed them (Lafayette) on for this weekend,” WKU coach Marc Rardin said in a news release. “They’re a quality team. They’re coached. They’re tough. They’re competitive. Last weekend doesn’t do them justice. They went to Southern Miss, a top-25 program. Their starter tonight went like seven or eight shutout innings against Southern Miss last weekend. He’s got really good stuff.

“So we battled and we fought. Our pitching matched their pitching, overall, with Jones and Higgins. It’s always big to get the first one. If you’re working in the preseason on things, you’re working to figure out how to win a three-game series. The number one thing you can do is win the first game, so we got that out of the way.”

WKU was first to the scoreboard as Carlos Vasquez scored on a wild pitch in the third inning. Camden Ross tacked on another in the frame as his sacrifice fly scored Ethan Lizama to put the Tops in front, 2-0.

Lafayette scored twice in the fifth inning to tie things up with a solo home run and an RBI sacrifice bunt.

In the bottom half of the frame, WKU scored twice on an RBI triple from Ryan Wideman and a two-out, RBI single from Ross to take the lead, 4-2.

The Hilltoppers extended their advantage to 5-2 in the seventh with a bunt single by Ross that caused a Leopard error and allowed Wideman to score.

The Hilltoppers generated nine hits, three RBIs and five runs while leaving nine runners on base.

Vasquez led the way at the plate going 3-for-5 with a triple, a run scored and two stolen bases. Over the first three games, the Brazil native is 7-for-13 with three extra-base hits, two RBIs, two runs scored and is a perfect 3-for-3 on stolen bases.

Ross was an efficient 2-for-3 at the plate, while Wideman’s lone hit was an RBI triple.

Lizama reached base three times and came around to score each time in a 1-for-3 outing with a single, a walk and a hit by pitch.

“Yeah, it was a good game,” Vasquez said. “A lot of credit to Higgins and Jones. They both did their thing in the later innings. We had some good situational hitting too. It was a good day.”

WKU wraps up its series with Lafayette on Sunday. The teams will play a doubleheader with first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m. at Nick Denes Field. Game two will begin 30 minutes following the conclusion of game one.

SCHEDULE UPDATE

WKU has added a contest at Murray State to the 2025 slate. The teams will face off on Monday at 3 p.m. CT in Murray.