NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton baseball team beat Easthampton in its biggest blowout of the season, 21-0, in a mercy-rule shortened five-inning game, Wednesday.

Northampton’s 21 runs were a season high. The Blue Devils sent 18 players to the plate with all but one reaching base.

Devin Kellogg (two RBIs, two runs) was 3-for-3 with two singles and a double, while Joe Pion (two RBIs, two runs) was 2-for-3 with a pair of doubles.

R.J. Safron (two RBIs) and Beau Garbarini (three RBIs) each had two hits.

Andy Grygorcewicz started and Tristan Szawlowski pitched in relief. They combined on a one-hitter with two walks. They struck out seven.

With two weeks left in the regular season, Blue Devils coach Mark Baldwin hoped his team could continue its strong play into the playoffs.

“Our goal is to get as high a seed as possible and get at least a first-round home game ... and more importantly we want to be playing our best as we go into the tournament,” Baldwin said. “We still have a lot of tough games to go.”

Baldwin stressed that he wanted his team to take every game seriously, including the win against the inexperienced and youthful Eagles.

“We never assume that a game’s going to be easy. We did assume that we weren’t going to see someone who threw terribly hard, which sometimes we struggle with, so we worked all day yesterday on hitting the ball to the gaps and hitting it opposite field,” Baldwin said. “I thought we stayed on pitches pretty well and that seemed to pay off.”

Northampton improved to 12-4 on the season. The Blue Devils have four games left in the regular season.

“I would hope that we could finish out the season strong,” said Blue Devils senior Robert Kirvin, who had two hits in the game. “Our goal every week is to win the week.”

Easthampton’s leadoff hitter, freshman catcher Zack Kugler, walked and reached third base in the first inning, but was picked off after taking a big lead off third base.

Only one other base runner reached third base for the Eagles during the game, but Nic Soucy was stranded in the top of the second.

Easthampton (1-13) entered the game with three eighth-graders, five freshmen, one sophomore, one junior and one senior.

Kugler said his goal going into a game against a more experienced team, such as Northampton, is to “just play the best we can, know how to play the game, respect the game, and just finish plays.”

Easthampton reached base three times. Ian Adams singled in the fifth to end the no-hitter. Kugler and Soucy each walked.

“We just come to the game every day or come to practice every day, trying to get a little bit better and working on things in order to improve,” Easthampton coach Ed Zuchowski said. “We have a very young team. I start five freshmen on any given day, a couple of eighth-graders as well. Our numbers are down in Easthampton and we’re just trying to build and work on things so that from game to game we can continue to get better and stronger.”

With three games left, Zuchowski said the remainder of this season will be about the young players improving on what they have.

“All aspects of the game we need to get better at,” he said. “Whether it’s our pitching or our defense or our hitting, we’re just trying to make one improvement a game and bring that to the next game or practice and add that on to what we’re already doing right.”

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