The 29th-ranked Belmont Abbey baseball team erased a 3-0 deficit by scoring seven unanswered runs, five coming in the bottom of the third after allowing three in the top half of the inning, as the Crusaders opened the 2010 season with a 7-3 win over the visiting Lenoir-Rhyne Bears in the season opener for both teams.

Lenoir-Rhyne scored all three of its runs after the first two men in the inning were retired, as Hank Wofford ripped a double to right, followed by a walk to Alex Cooks. Evan Taylor drove home both men with a double to the gap in right center. Rob Knight plated Taylor with a single to right to up the Bears lead to 3-0.

The lead did not last long as the Crusaders took command of the game in the bottom half of the frame, scoring five times. Spencer Sobol opened the frame with a single up the middle and moved to second when Tim Dye was hit by a pitch. Josh Frazier ripped a double to right, scoring Sobol, and Roland Rodriguez knotted the game at three with a single back through the box that scored Dye and Frazier. After Rodriguez moved to second on a wild pitch, Justin Baxley gave the Abbey the lead for good with a stinging double to right center to push the Abbey ahead 4-3 and force a pitching change. After that change, Chris Vazquez moved Baxley to third with a groundout, and he scored on a sacrifice fly to left by Ryan Ronda to extend the Crusaders lead to 5-3.

That was all of the scoring until the bottom of the seventh when Vazquez punctuated the surge when he blasted an opposite field homer to right that also scored Rodriquez, who led off the inning with a single.

Steven Thiele, the third of seven Abbey pitchers, was credited with the win after giving up three runs on three hits in an inning of work. Brandon Padgett took the loss. He gave up four runs on five hits on five batters faced. He did not retire a batter.