The offense of the Nansemond River High School boys’ baseball team arrived on Wednesday against host Lakeland High School and powered it to an 8-3 win.

It was an important win for the Warriors, who had just come off a disappointing 4-2 loss to Hickory on Tuesday night.

Senior pitcher Zach Rice, who pitched four innings and had seven strikeouts, explained his mindset about facing a cross-town rival.

“I don’t really think about any of that,” he said. “I really wanted to just come out and get a win. Lost last night, and basically, all I’ve been thinking about today was coming out and getting a win.”

Rice, who also had a hit, cited what the team did at bat as the key to the win.

“Our offense came to life,” he said. “We had a little bit in the Indian River game, but we came to life today. Defense played well, and that was about it. We just played solid baseball.”

The Cavaliers generated some offense of their own in the sixth inning, thanks in large part to junior Jefferson Knight, which made the score 8-3. They even had the bases loaded with one out in the seventh, but the Warriors’ defense stiffened once again to end the game.

“We threw the ball real well,” Warriors head coach Mark Stuffel said. “Defensively, other than the debacle right there at the end when we threw the ball all over the place, we played solid defensively, and we had a lot of base runners. That’s the big difference. We haven’t gotten a whole lot of base runners yet this year, so it’s nice.”

It was an especially welcome change since the Warriors struck out 12 times against Hickory High School on Tuesday.

Lakeland head coach Mark Pollick was shaking his head over the second inning.

“One bad inning,” he said. “We had one bad inning.”

Walks proved to be a major issue.

“We can’t defend walks,” he said. “We can’t defend ‘em. That one inning kind of summed it up.”

He was pleased with the fight that his team showed, however.

“We didn’t lay down,” he said. “We fought hard. We played an actually good game.”

Great Bridge High School visits Lakeland (0-3, 0-3) tomorrow, and Nansemond River (2-2, 2-2) hosts Deep Creek on Friday.