Never has the expression lights out been applied so literally as Tuesday at Porters Chapel.

The Eagles overcame some malfunctioning lights to win their first game of the season, 11-9, over visiting Rebul Academy. The game was shortened to 41⁄2 innings as darkness began to creep into the outfield.

It was a good news/bad news outing for the Eagles. The good news was the Eagles swung the sticks with authority, notching 10 hits. Pitcher Talbot Buys paced the offense for PCA with three hits and four RBIs.

The bad news was the defense, which had seven errors. Only four of Rebul’s runs were earned.

“It was not pretty, but it’s a win,” PCA coach Wade Patrick said. “Being a young team, you’ll take any win you can get and I’ll take an ugly win over a pretty loss any day. We did a lot of good things, we swung the bats really well, but we’ve got to shore some things up defensively.”

The start couldn’t have gone any worse for PCA (1-1) as two errors put runners on the corners. RBI singles by Justin Maupin and Ryan Lea and another error gave Rebul a 3-0 lead.

But PCA rallied. Sam Kirk led off the frame with a walk and Jonah Masterson drove him home with an RBI single. One run scored on an error, Sam Staggs added another RBI single and DeWayne Russell drove in another with a basehit.

Buys struck the biggest blow of the inning with a two-out, two-RBI single smoked through the gap. In all, the Eagles struck for eight runs and four hits in the frame.

But the Raiders refused to slink away into the dreary gloom in the top of the second. Buys gave up a single, two walks and hit two to start the inning on the mound. Lea notched his second and third RBIs on a single as the Raiders knotted the game at 8.

Rebul took back the lead in the top of the third as Maupin drove in Christian Pitre on a RBI groundout. PCA wasted little time tying the game at 9 in the bottom of the frame as Masterson lanced a two-out triple deep into the outfield and Buys notched his third RBI on another sharply-hit single through the gap.

Sam Kirk came on in relief in the top of the fourth and kept the visitors off the board, setting the stage for one final rally. Zac Morgan led off the bottom of the fourth with a single and two costly errors allowed him to score the lead run.

“Our pitching was getting kind of slim,” Rebul Academy Bill Perry said. “It hurts because there was a chance we could’ve won. Did the lights affect us? Sure, but not to take anything away from Porters Chapel. We played hard, but they played harder.”

In the bottom of the fifth, Kirk led off with a single and Buys drove in his fourth run as the contest ended.

Buys took the win, working four innings with seven strikeouts. He labored through an 84-pitch outing, hitting four batsmen and walking two, but yielding four hits.