Ravens Baseball used a powerful offense and strong starting pitching to pick up a win in Wednesday's Heart Baseball Championship Series.

The Ravens beat the Peru State Bobcats 13-6 to move to the Championship Bracket semifinal.

Michael Kruse nearly went the distance on the bump, picking up 25 of 27 outs in the game while giving up just 3 earned runs. He also struck out 7 Bobcats.

With Kruse slowing down a potent Peru State lineup, the Ravens offense gave the senior plenty of run support. The Ravens scored 2 in the first, 1 run each in the third, fourth, and fifth innings, then exploded for 6 runs in the seventh and 2 more in the eighth to put the game out of reach.

Michael Slaten was the driving force, blasting a home run and a pair of doubles, scoring 5 runs on the day. Jacob Slaten went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs, Danny Favazza, Jacob Pavlyak and Jack Harpole each had two hits and 2 RBIs, and Brandon Van Beceleare tripled in 3 runs in the Ravens big seventh inning.

In all, the Ravens pounded out 17 hits in the win, with seven of those being extra-base hits.

The Ravens entered the game as the No. 5 seed, topping the No. 4 seed Bobcats by 7 runs. The reward for the Ravens will be a 5 p.m. Friday matchup against the top-seeded Central Methodist University Eagles in the Championship Bracket. The winner of that game will play at 5 p.m. in the Championship Bracket Finals, while the loser will try to battle through the Consolation Bracket, beginning with a game at 10 a.m. on Saturday.

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