While a nice bonfire would have been more applicable for a biting, cold Monday night, the Elizabethton Cyclones decided to heat up their bats and fan out any hopes the Tri-Cities Flames had of taking a win on the Cyclones home field.

Taking advantage of 13 hits, Elizabethton extinguished the Flames in a five-inning affair 14-4 to run their season record to 4-2 at Joe O’Brien Field.

Elizabethton utilized a pair of sacrifice fly balls in the bottom of the first inning from Bryson Rollins and Evan Perkins to score two runs to take a lead they would let go of the rest of the way.

The Cyclones scored two more runs in the bottom of the second after the Flames scored on a Cyclone error to make it 4-1.

Turning up the heat in the bottom of the third, Elizabethton sent seven runners across the plate thanks to a big offensive output.

Perkins, Matthew Dailey, Cooper Tipton, Lawson Wagner, Karson Dillard, and Rollins recorded run-scoring base hits to help the Cyclones take a commanding 11-1 lead.

The Flames tried to make a game of it in the top of the fifth inning adding three runs to make it 11-4 in favor of ‘Betsy.

Elizabethton made sure to put the game to bed in their half of the frame as Perkins slammed a triple to center field to send Rollins and Evan Carter scrambling home to make it a 10-run mercy rule contest.

Carter, Dillard, and Perkins collected multiple hits in the game for Elizabethton as each Cyclone slapped two hits in the contest.

The Cyclones were also terrors on the base path running almost at will as Dillard led the way with three steals in the game.

Will Livingston took advantage of the offensive artillery to pitch a masterful game going four innings allowing the Flame batters only one hit and one run in the game while sitting down seven Flames on strikeouts.

Rollins came in to pitch the fifth inning for the Cyclones in relief.

“We are working toward being more consist,” said Cyclone head coach Ryan Presnell. “We got five good innings of consistent baseball tonight.

“We had some decent consistent baseball on Sunday, but Saturday just wasn’t consistent for us. You can’t go to Knoxville and play those calibers of teams like we played being inconsistent.

“You want to find a bright spot in a loss,” continued Presnell. “We just didn’t play very good baseball, and I will be honest with you—Loudon is probably one of the best AA team that I have seen.”

“So, to get beat 7-4 and not play very good baseball at all, is a bright spot.”

The same two teams were set to tangle Tuesday evening.