Cole Evans made the wait for baseball worth it Friday night.

After an hour lightning delay that involved some light rain, Evans welcomed the home crowd back into their seats with a two-run home run over the bricks in left field.

“It’s something special to see a ball get out of here, and especially to hit one yourself,” said Evans, whose homer was the 169th to leave the yard at Duncan Field in its 80-year history. “That one felt good, for sure.”

The high-arching blast also brought in Casey Burnham, who had walked and stole second prior to the pause in play. It put Hastings up 2-0 quickly.

“Off the bat you think that’s a homer anywhere, and then you see it go over here, it makes you feel good, especially right after that rain delay,” said head coach JM Kelly. “It gave us the momentum that carried us the rest of the game. We just kept building on it.”

Sodbusters general manager Scott Galusha interrupted Mike Decker’s at-bat in the bottom of the first after receiving an alert on his phone that inclement weather was heading toward Duncan Field.

Galusha crossed the field behind home plate to inform Souris Valley Sabre Dogs head coach Corey Thompson of the situation, and then the game was put on hold.

The lightning was worse than the rain. And it put a jolt into the already-hot Sodbuster bats. Yet another offensive outpour gave the Sodbusters a 11-1 victory for the two-game sweep.

“I just let them go out and play and they do the rest,” Kelly said. “Scott did a great job putting this team together. This is all a testament to what he built and how he built it and how these kids play.”

The home team pounded the baseball, again, racking up 11 hits.

The scoring came in clumps.

Following Evans’ long ball in the opening frame, Burnham tripled home Connor Laux, who doubled, in the second inning.

Burnham finished 2-for-3, reaching base five times, driving in a pair, and scoring twice. His on-base percentage is sky high at an unprecedented 1.169, and his batting average is an astounding .429.

“The kid can play,” Kelly said of Burnham. “There’s a reason he’s where he’s at. He just gets the job done every time and he’s a special guy.”

A leadoff double by Tayten Tredaway and singles by Decker and Evans added two more runs to the tally in the fourth for a 5-1 Sodbusters lead.

Then, in the sixth, Darek Bornemeier hit a towering fly ball to the base of the wall in left-center field, about 405 feet from home plate. It didn’t leave the yard like Evans’ did, however, the result was the same: a two-run home run, only of the inside-the-park variety.

Wyatt Andersen hammered home two more in the Sodbusters’ eighth, just for good measure, with his second double of the game to deep left, then scored on an infield single by Laux.

Souris Valley (6-8) mustered just four hits on the night, thanks to sound pitching from Hastings.

“Our pitchers threw probably the best they have all year,” Evans said.

The five Sodbuster arms who saw action struck out 12 Sabre Dogs, who plated their only run in the second inning on a pair of two-out singles by Ivan Prejean and Chase Alford. The former scored after stealing second base during Alford’s at-bat.

A two-out triple in the eighth by Josh Sololmon was for naught.

Evans Hendricks was the winning pitcher for Hastings, having thrown the third through the sixth innings. He struck out three and walked three.

It’s fair to say the Sodbusters (8-7) are playing good baseball right now. They head to the weekend as winners in seven of their last nine games.

“Sometimes it takes a while to get going,” Kelly said. “These guys are going now and I don’t see them slowing down anytime soon.”

Hastings hosts Western Nebraska Saturday and Sunday, both 6:35 p.m. starts, then takes Monday and Tuesday off before finishing off the five-game set with the Pioneers.