In their first meeting of the year, city baseball rivals Watertown and Immaculate Heart Central needed two extra innings to decide the outcome.

This time, the Cyclones jumped on the Cavaliers early and often, and breezed to a 16-4 win Saturday at the Alex T. Duffy Fairgrounds to sweep the season and Frontier League "A" Division series.

A six-run first inning was all Watertown (10-6 overall, 6-3 league) needed to take control. Another six-run fifth put the game out of reach after IHC (12-8, 4-5) had threatened to get back in the game with two runs each in the third and fifth innings.

"It was nice to finally get a big early lead," said Watertown's Will VanHouten, who contributed to the first inning rally with an RBI double and also pitched six strong innings to earn the victory. "The last couple games we haven't hit very well. Today, we started fast and it just carried over to the rest of the game."

WHS banged out 13 hits, led by Forrester Wight and Nolan Bodah with three hits apiece. Ryan Gentile contributed two hits, Josh Cox slammed his school-record seventh homer of the season, and Sean Scordo and Jordan Hayes added doubles for Matt Covey's club.

"Hitting is contagious with us," Covey said. "When the top of the order hits, the rest of the guys usually follow. When the top struggles, so does everybody else. Hopefully, we can carry this into the playoffs."

And while everything was going right for the Cyclones, including turning two infield double plays, not much went well for the Cavaliers. Just three days after knocking off division-leading Indian River with an almost perfect effort, IHC was its own worst enemy Saturday with numerous wild pitches, passed balls and the inability to deliver with men on base.

"It was totally opposite of Wednesday," IHC coach Mike Delaney said. "Our pitcher (Matt Yott) threw just 80 pitches in seven innings and today Brian (Magovney) was at around 60 pitches in the second inning. Brian couldn't throw his curve ball for a strike, so their hitters were just sitting on the fastball."

Scordo began the WHS first with a double. Bodah bunted for an infield hit and VanHouten drove in Scordo with a double. Wight and Hayes also singled home runs, two more scored on wild pitches and Scordo, batting for the second time in the inning, plated the sixth run with a sacrifice fly.

Magovney threw 43 pitches in the first inning alone and survived only until the top of the fourth.

"We had some very good at-bats in the first and were more aggressive than we have been," Covey said. "And we didn't chase a lot of bad pitches."

VanHouten allowed two runs on two hits in the third, and two runs on four hits in the IHC fifth. But he also enticed a huge 6-4-3 double play in the fourth with runners on first and second, and he started a 1-2-3 twin killing with the bases loaded in the fifth.

"I had trouble spotting my fastball, but I could throw the curve or a strike almost at any time," VanHouten said. "Those double plays really bailed me out."

VanHouten said the Cyclones, now in second place alone, have as good a chance as anybody to finish strong and take the playoffs, which will be Thursday in the "A" Division. "We certainly can contend," he said. "It just depends on which team shows up."