Jasha Balcom had three hits while teammates Greg Alden, Nick Orlandos and Mitch Miggenburg added two each pacing the College of Charleston's 12-hit attack in a 5-4 win over East Tennessee State in Southern Conference college baseball action Friday night before 339 at Patriots Point Field.

The Cougars (8-5, 1-0 SoCon) scored single runs in each of the first four innings to take a 4-0 lead. Nathan Copeland, who was 2-for-4 with three RBI, blasted a two-run homer to right in the sixth cutting the margin to 4-2. Matt Hallett's run-scoring single in the bottom of the sixth scored Brett Spivey who had reached on an error.

ETSU (3-9, 0-1) used a wild pitch and an RBI single from Copeland to cut the Cougar advantage to 5-4 in the eighth for the final margin. Robby Milner (2-2) picked up the win allowing three runs on four hits with two walks and nine strikeouts over 7 1/3 innings of work. Andy Hutchings recorded his fourth save of the season allowing an unearned run with two strikeouts over the final 1 2/3 innings.

Josh Kite (0-1) suffered the loss surrendering four runs on 10 hits over five innings. He walked two and struck out seven.

Game two of the three game series is Saturday at 1:00 p.m.