Photo by Andrew Grimm The Toronto dugout celebrates with Lucas Wiseman after he scored a run during Monday's game. Toronto was sporting orange hats for MS Awareness.

Taking on East Liverpool at home at the Knights Baseball Complex, the Red Knights prevailed with a 10-0 victory.

Bigger than the win added to their column, though, they raised awareness and money for a good cause in the process.

It was Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Day at the KBC. In a partnership with WVU Medicine, the team wore special orange hats on the field and T-shirts were sold to raise money for MS research and awareness.

Toronto head coach Brian Perkins’ brother, Don, was diagnosed with the disease in 2019. He is a graduate of East Liverpool. March is also MS Awareness Month.

Photo by Andrew Grimm Toronto head coach Brian Perkins addresses his team after their 10-0 win over East Liverpool on Monday.

“This was a special one,” Perkins said. “We’re happy to be able to bring awareness to multiple sclerosis. It’s a disease that has impacted many families. We’re glad to bring awareness to it. We had a nice turnout, hopefully we were able to raise some money for a good cause.”

Once the action started, the Knights did not have perhaps their sharpest day hitting, but managed to turn four hits into 10 runs, taking full advantage of any opportunity they had with guys on base.

Their biggest hit of the game came in the fourth inning, a two-out bases-clearing double from Heath Thomas that took the score from 6-0 to 9-0.

“By far it wasn’t one of our best days hitting; they were keeping us off balance,” Perkins said. “But, when we got on base, we ran the bases really well and found ways to create opportunities. We found ways to get guys in; we found ways to score. Heath had a really big hit. That’s baseball, you’ll have days where you struggle to hit a little bit but you get back at it the next day.”

After Tanner Newbold knocked an RBI single that made it 10-0 and brought the run rule into play, Thomas came on the mound and fired a 1-2-3 top of the fifth with a pair of punch outs to bring things to an early end.

Photo by Andrew Grimm Toronto pitcher Jacob Parissi fires a pitch during Monday's game. He was the winning pitcher firing four scoreless innings.

Sophomore Jacob Parissi tossed the first four scoreless innings for the win on the mound, striking out two and walking four while holding the Potters to two singles.

“Both pitchers did a nice job,” Perkins said. “Jacob is just a sophomore and he threw well; he threw his pitches. We’ve got to get him to stay in the zone a little bit more, but he did a good job. Heath came in and closed things out. I don’t think he even threw 10 pitches.

“We told the guys we wanted to see some clutch gene and they came through with a big inning to get the 10-run rule. In a busy week, that’s important to do that when you have a chance to save some pitching. By getting the 10-run rule and the two guys we threw throwing well, we didn’t have to use a lot of pitching.”

Toronto jumped ahead early when Chase Heckathorn drew a bases-loaded walk with two outs in the bottom of the first, then another run crossed on a balk before the Potters (0-2) could get the third out.

An inning later, Drake Bouscher had an RBI knock to make it 3-0 and later scored on a wild pitch for a 4-0 lead.

Photo by Andrew Grimm Toronto's Drake Bouscher sprints to third base after the ball got through the East Liverpool infield on Monday.

That remained the score until the fourth when the Knights plated six runs, all of which came after a pair of East Liverpool errors. They finished with four fielding miscues in the game.

“We’re a young team,” East Liverpool head coach Dan Suznevich said. “We have to learn how to win and that’s something this program hasn’t done in a while, so it’s tough. We have one bad thing happen and kind of get our heads down, we have to learn how to play through that and keep going. We start a lot of young guys so we’ll get there.

“We are kind of getting baptism by far starting with Edison twice and the No. 2 team in the state (Toronto).”

UP NEXT

East Liverpool: Takes on Edison for the second time in three games today at home.

Toronto: Hosts Western Reserve on Wednesday before a big local match up with Big Red on Thursday.

Toronto 10, East Liverpool 0

EL 0-0-0 0-0-x x — 0-2 4

T 2-2-0 6-x-x x — 10 4 0

EAST LIVERPOOL (0-2): Brown (LP, 2IP, 4R, 4ER, 1H, 1K, 5BB, 1HBP), Duke (1 2/3IP, 5R, 0ER, 1H, 1K, 1BB, 2HBP), Shaw (1/3IP, 1R, 1ER, 2H, 0K, 0BB) and Shallcross. Shallcross S; Brown S.

TORONTO (2-0): Parissi (WP, 4IP, 0R, 2H, 2K, 4BB), Thomas (1IP, 0R, 0H, 2K, 0BB) and McGrath. Bouscher S, RBI; Thomas D, 3RBIs; Heckathorn S, RBI; Newbold S, RBI.