United South Central baseball head coach Pat Frank wanted to see how his team would perform against a hard-throwing pitcher and he got his wish Friday against Maple River, but his team, however, didn’t look up to the challenge.

The Rebels were overmatched against Eagles starter T.J. Nowak as Nowak threw a two-hit gem in a 5-1 victory for Maple River in Mapleton.

“It was a good game for us just for the fact that we got to see a good pitcher and those are the types of guys were going to see come playoff time,” Frank said.

Nowak gave up one run, walked five and struck out 10 in the victory.

USC senior William Huper had both hits and senior A.J. Dreyer had the lone RBI in the game.

The Rebels (8-4, 5-1 Gopher) stranded five runners and had runners on first and second with nobody out in the sixth, but failed to score.

The Eagles struck quickly and took a 3-0 lead after the second inning against Huper, who started for USC.

Huper gave up five hits, walked four and struck out four in six innings.

The Rebels head to Mankato Monday for a Gopher Conference showdown with Loyola. Both teams are ranked in Class A with Loyola ranked 10th and USC 17th and both have just one loss in the conference.

Maple River 5, USC 1

USC 001 000 0 — 1 2 2

Maple River 210 020 x — 5 5 2

WP—T.J. Nowak 7 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 5 BB, 10 K

LP—William Huper 6 IP, 5 H, 5 R,

3 ER, 4 BB, 4 K