Nashville, TENN. – Junior Carlo Testa’s (Tallmadge, Ohio) seven innings of pitching and a solo home run at the plate helped propel the Belmont baseball team to a 6-3 victory over USC Upstate at Greer Stadium in Nashville, Tenn. on Friday.

The win improves Belmont to 16-26 overall and 12-13 in the Atlantic Sun Conference while the loss drops USC Upstate to 20-24 and 13-12 in the A-Sun.

Testa (5-2) went seven full-innings in the contest and even had a no-hitter last until the fifth inning. He gave up only one earned run on three hits and had four strikeouts. The Bruins are now 7-2 in contests Testa starts.

Matt Branham started the game for USC Upstate and went seven innings as well while giving up six runs, five earned, along with seven hits and three walks. He (4-5) had four strikeouts in the game.

Belmont started the scoring in the third inning with three runs. The first run came on a single to left field by sophomore Daniel Wagner (China Grove, N.C.) which scored junior Brandon McCall (Spring Hill, Tenn.). The other two runs were driven in by freshman Nate Woods (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) on a double down the left field line plating Wagner and junior Derek Wiley (Dublin, Calif.).

The Bruins continued the offensive pressure with two more runs in the sixth inning to make the score 5-0 in favor of Belmont. The two runs came on a single to right field by freshman Vinny Casha (Nashville, Tenn.) which scored Wagner and the other one came on a double play by sophomore Ryan Kincherlow (Antioch, Tenn.) scoring Woods.

The Spartans scored two runs of their own in the top of the seventh inning before Belmont responded with a run in the bottom half of that inning. The score came on a solo home run to left field by Testa, his third of the season.

USC Upstate scored a run in the top of the ninth inning.

McCall got one hit in the contest to extend his hitting streak to six games.

“We got a great effort from Carlo on the mound today,” said Belmont head coach Dave Jarvis. “He allowed our offense to settle in and we got some runs throughout.”

The Bruins will return to action against USC Upstate on Apr. 25 at Greer Stadium in Nashville, Tenn. starting at 3 p.m.