RADFORD, Va. – Radford scored five early runs and starter Michael Boyle worked into the eighth inning as the Highlanders took the series opener from Charleston Southern, 7-2, on Friday night at RU Baseball Stadium.

With the win, Radford improves to 34-14 overall and 15-4 in Big South play, while CSU falls to 22-23 and 9-10.

Boyle (W, 8-2) held the Bucs to four hits and two earned runs in 7.2 innings. He struck out four and walked three.

Radford's Hunter Higgerson had a three-run double in the fifth to break open a 2-1 game. Patrick Marshall hit a two-run home run in the first off of CSU starter Andrew Tomasovich (L, 7-6) to spark RU to an early lead.

The Bucs cut the RU lead to 2-1 in the second on an RBI single from Chris Singleton, who as 2-for-3, but couldn't get anything going against Boyle.

CSU extended two hitting streaks in the eighth when Nate Blanchard doubled and scored on an RBI single by Brian Dye. Dye ran his hitting streak to a CSU season-best 17 games, while Blanchard is at 16 games.

Reliever Jon Piriz worked 2.2 scoreless innings in relief for the Bucs.

The teams meet against on Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m.

-CSU-