Jacksonville, Fla. – North Florida scored all the runs it would need in the first inning Friday night to take a 6-2 victory over Stetson in the first game of a weekend Atlantic Sun Conference series at Harmon Stadium.

The Ospreys (22-14, 3-4) took advantage of a hit batter and an error on a would-be double-play grounder in the first inning to score three runs off Stetson starting pitcher Brooks Wilson (3-5) and then held off the Hatters (17-16, 1-4) down the stretch.

UNF starter Bryan Baker (3-2) was masterful for his six innings of work. He blanked Stetson for the first 5.2 innings before Hatters senior Kevin Fagan broke up both his no-hit bid and his shutout with a two-out RBI single. Fagan had two of the four hits in the game for Stetson and drove in both Hatters runs.

Baker opened the game with strikeouts of the first four Stetson hitters, but walks haunted him through his six innings of work. He finished with six walks and six strikeouts while allowing the one unearned run on one hit to get the win.

After the shaky opening inning, Wilson settled in and gave Stetson a strong performance. He allowed four runs, three earned, on six hits in seven innings of work. He walked two and struck out four.

Stetson scratched its way to within 4-2 in the eighth and leaving the bases loaded in the sixth against Baker. Reliever Daniel Moritz came on to get the final out in the eighth to avoid further damage and then retired the Hatters in order in the ninth for his first career save.

UNF made the job a little easier for Moritz in the bottom of the eighth thanks to a two-run home run by Nick Karmeris off Stetson reliever Josh Thorne.

The blast might have been a little less damaging, but before the Karmeris homer, Corbin Olmstead reached on a single on an 0-2 pitch after he could have been retired on a foul pop fly. Stetson third baseman Cory Reid did all he could to make the play in the swirling wind, but got no help and was unable to come up with the catch.

The home run for Karmeris was his eighth of the season.

It was Reid in the top of the inning that got the Hatters into scoring position when he led off with a perfect bunt hit off reliever Matthew Naylor. A ground out moved Reid into scoring position for Fagan to drive home.

It was the middle of the UNF batting order that did the most damage in the game. Keith Skinner had two hits and scored two runs from the three hole, Olmstead had three hits in the cleanup spot and Karmeris had two hits and drove in four from the fifth spot in the order. The rest of the UNF batting order combined for one hit in the game.