Brandon Zanni offered up his longest outing of the season and Phoenix made the most of its opportunities Wednesday to score a 5-3 victory over Henley in the first game of this week’s three-game series.

The Pirates (7-3) notched only three hits in the Skyline Conference showdown but they all came in a four-run third inning that settled it at Hagler-James Park.

“We hit balls to guys all day long,” said Phoenix coach Bill Hutchinson. “We couldn’t seem to find grass but we kept the pressure on them all day and had good approaches all day and it worked out. It’s not often you get outhit 9-3 and win, but we actually put more pressure on them all day if you can believe that. Most of their hits came with two outs.”

Hutchinson also credited Zanni for his work on the mound after the senior allowed two earned runs with six strikeouts and no walks in a complete-game effort against Henley (6-4).

“He just pounded the zone all day and did a great job of changing eye level,” said Hutchinson, “which is something we’ve been working on for a while. Out of 92 pitches, he was just hitting his spots all day. The basehits were rollovers in the six and four holes. He did an outstanding job, he really commanded the mound today.”

Zanni scored the Pirates’ first run in the first inning when he drew a leadoff walk, moved to third on an error and came home on a groundout by Eli Page.

In the fourth, Zanni and Trystan Norris drew consecutive walks and Page added a bunt single to load the bases.

With one out, Ethan Humble plated the go-ahead run with an infield hit and Monte Spence then drew a walk to make it 3-1. An infield hit by Jordan Jones plus a throwing error resulted in the final two runs of the frame.

The two teams play again in a doubleheader Saturday.

Henley1001001—393

Phoenix104000x—533

Cheyne, Schwenk (3), Graham (6) and Orr; Zanni and Scala. W — Zanni. L — Cheyne.