PITTSBURGH -- With two teams bringing giant win streaks to Point Park Field at Green Tree Park, the stage was set for a tight battle until the end. Indiana University Southeast extended its win streak to 18 games, and Point Park University's was stopped at 15 with the Grenadiers taking the opening game of the RSC series, 5-3, on Friday afternoon.

IU Southeast (27-11, 16-0 RSC) became the first team to beat Point Park (23-8, 12-4 RSC) in nearly a month. The Pioneers last lost on March 13 at Rio Grande (Ohio). The series continues on Saturday with two games beginning at 12 p.m. at Point Park Field. The weekend matchup pits the top two teams in the current conference standings.

Friday's action had big hits and flashy plays on defense on the part of both teams. The Grenadiers got a couple more key hits and took away some potential hits from the Pioneers to stay in front and come out on top.

IU Southeast got out to a 5-1 lead through five innings. Point Park reliever Ruben Ramirez came in and blanked the Grenadiers on two hits the rest of the way.

The Pioneers cut the deficit to 5-3 on Luis Mujica's two-run homer in the bottom of the seventh. Still with no outs in the inning, IU Southeast went to its bullpen for the second time. This time, it called upon Brenden Bube, who pitched the rest of the way and closed out the victory. Bube earned the save in 3.0 innings giving up just one hit and no runs.

Point Park did get the tying run on base in the bottom of the ninth thanks to Luis Hernandez's one-out double and Mujica getting hit by a pitch. But Bube retired the next two in a row to strand the runners.

Point Park had eight left on base, with six of them being costly runners left in scoring position. The IU Southeast infield came up big in those situations making diving plays on grounders to leave runners in scoring position in the fifth and sixth innings. Earlier, the Pioneers could not find the holes as it had a runner hit by a grounder to stymie a threat in the first inning and a line drive to short to strand a runner at second in the second.

Point Park was trailing, 3-0, before Ed Pfluger smashed a solo home run to left field. His sixth of the year came in the third inning. It was the only run given up by IU Southeast starter Cade Reynolds, who pitched 5.0 innings to get the win.

Point Park starter Nick Beardsley pitched 4.1 innings and was tagged witht the loss. IU Southeast catcher Brody Tanksley was the main offensive weapon for the Grenadiers as he drove in three of the five runs, doubled twice and collected three hits.

Tanksley's RBI single in the first came after Matt Monahan's triple. IU Southeast added two more in the third with Monahan delivering a sacrifice fly and Tanksley smashing an RBI double off the wall in center field. He had another RBI double in the fifth as the lead went to 5-1.

Ramirez quieted down the Grenadiers fanning four of the first five batters he faced. He finished with seven strikeouts, no walks and two hits allowed.

Beardsley struck out three to move into a tie for the Point Park career record for strikeouts. He now has 219 career strikeouts in 209.2 career innings. That is tied with Cory Hartburg (1988-91), who had been alone atop the strikeout list for 30 years.