PULLMAN — After the baseball soared over the left field wall at Bailey-Brayton Field and Washington State center fielder Justin Van De Brake touched home plate to complete his grand slam, the Cougars had scored a whopping 12 runs in the first inning Thursday against Niagara.

It was a monstrous start to the first home baseball game of 2020 for the Cougs and new coach Brian Green.

WSU rode its big start to a 16-7 win against Niagara, an NCAA Division I team from Lewiston, N.Y. The Purple Eagles came to Pullman less than three weeks after upsetting No. 14 Florida State in their season opener.

“That was pretty fun,” Green said, smiling. “... I think it was six two-strike hits in the first inning, just putting the ball in play, ground balls. We did a good job of that, obviously controlling the zone.”

Notching his first start at the top of the lineup, Mt. Spokane product Brady Hill got the Cougars rolling with a two-strike, infield single.

Jack Smith and Kyle Manzardo followed with hits, the latter scoring Hill, and WSU (6-6) was rolling.

The Cougars scored five runs before the first out, and Van De Brake alone tallied six of his seven RBI in the inning. His grand slam scored Manzardo, Smith and Collin Montez for the second time that inning and put WSU ahead 12-0.

“It’s always nice to come out like that, come out hard,” said Van De Brake, a junior college transfer from Tacoma Community College. “We weren’t really doing anything different, necessarily. Just sticking to our approach and trying to hit line drives and ground balls, and that’s what we did and it worked for us.”

After the Cougs torched Niagara starting pitcher Tommy Bednarski and reliever Alexandre Jones in the first, Jones settled in and pitched the next four innings.

The Purple Eagles (5-5) were perhaps feeling a little less blue after scoring three runs in the third. They went three-up, three-down in the first two innings.

The Cougs added a pair of runs in the third and sixth. They ended with 19 hits, including one by all nine players in their starting lineup.

Hill made a case for staying in the leadoff role after recording four hits and three runs.

“Happy for Brady Hill,” Green said. “We’re still looking for that leadoff guy. The matchup was right, we threw him in and get four hits out of him.”

Montez added four runs and two RBI, and Manzardo — a Lake City grad from Coeur d’Alene — had two runs, two hits and three RBI.

Starter Tanner West went five innings and earned the win.

The teams meet again at 3:05 p.m. today at Bailey-Brayton in the second of a four-game series.

“The message we send to our players right now is it’s baseball — that team beat Florida State on their season opener,” Green said. “So for us, get back to work, clear it.

“Obviously we’ll come in with a little bit of confidence, but we’re 1-0 (in the series), feeling good. Now let’s regroup and get back to the fundamentals.”

Niagara 003 001 003—7 10 2

WSU (12)02 002 00x—16 19 1

Bednarski, Jones (1), Theal (6), Smyth (7), Parranto (8) and Zaremba. West, Newstrom (6), Taylor (8), Cammarata (9), Leonard (9) and Meyer, Polinksy (7).

Niagara hits — Battaglia 2, Tucker 2 (2B), Zaremba 2 (HR), Marcus 2, Bailey, O’Conner.

WSU hits — Hill 4, Van De Brake 3 (2B, HR), Smith 2 (2B), Manzardo 2 (2B), Meyer 2, Kolden 2, Tomasi 2, Montez (HR), Gouldsmith.

Stephan Wiebe can be reached at swiebe@dnews.com, by phone at (208) 883-4624 and on Twitter at @StephanSports.