Opening up their pursuit of an Olympic berth on home soil, the United States national team started hot

Luke Williams and Jarren Duran combined for six hits out of the top two spots in the US order, and Mark Kolosvery homered as the United States piled on late for a 7-1 win over Nicaragua on the first day of the Americas Baseball Qualifier from Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

Williams and Duran keyed the Americans’ offense from the game’s opening inning, reaching on a walk and single respectively to open the first inning and advancing to scoring position on a wild pitch by Nicaragua starter Carlos Téller (0-1). After Williams scored on Todd Frazier’s sacrifice fly to center, Duran came home on Eric Filia’s RBI single through the right side. The US hardly looked back.

Nicaragua got on the board with a run on an RBI fielder’s choice off the bat of Benjamin Alegria in the second, but that was all against US starter Matthew Liberatore. Over five innings, the top St. Louis Cardinals prospect allowed one run on five hits with one walk and four strikeouts in picking up his first win of the Qualifier.

Kolosvery led off the fourth inning with a homer off the batter’s eye in center field, and Williams singled and scored on another RBI knock by Filia in the sixth. The US pulled away with three runs in the ninth, two on Duran’s third hit of the night, a two-out single to left field.

After Liberatore’s departure, Brandon Dickson struck out three in two perfect relief innings. Anthony Gose and Marc Rzepczynski each pitched scoreless innings out of the bullpen to close the door for the US.

The United States racked up 14 hits in the win before a crowd of 3500, setting up a matchup with Monday’s other Group A winner, the Dominican Republic, on Tuesday in West Palm Beach.